Robert Ludlum author photo

Robert Ludlum

Nato: May 25, 1927 – New York City, New York, United States

Robert Ludlum was an American novelist known for fast-paced espionage and conspiracy thrillers. He created the Jason Bourne series with The Bourne Identity and also wrote The Osterman Weekend and The Matarese Circle. His novels sold hundreds of millions of copies worldwide and helped shape the modern international thriller genre.

Biografia e Percorso dell'Autore

Robert Ludlum was born in New York City on May 25, 1927, and came of age in a period marked by war, mass media, and expanding American power, forces that would later animate his fiction. After serving in the U.S. Marine Corps, he attended Wesleyan University, where he deepened an interest in performance and dramatic structure. Before he became known as a novelist, he built a substantial career as an actor and theatrical producer, working in stage and television settings that sharpened his sense of pacing, dialogue, and suspense. That apprenticeship in performance mattered: long before he wrote international thrillers, he had learned how to hold an audience through scene construction, revelation, and timing.

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Citazioni

quote
I try to show introspection without really talking about it that much, but they have their doubts. Their self-doubts are expressed more voluminously than I do
-Fresh Air: Remembering Writer Robert Ludlum
quote
I either played homicidal killers or lawyers. And I've always thought there was a very definite connection
-Fresh Air: Remembering Writer Robert Ludlum
quote
It's morally one step below theft. But when you have a couple of kids in college, it doesn't hurt
-Fresh Air: Remembering Writer Robert Ludlum
quote
I'd been writing. I'd been a closet writer for years
-Fresh Air: Remembering Writer Robert Ludlum
quote
I think I write suspense-fiction, but then, you know, so's "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey."
-Fresh Air: Remembering Writer Robert Ludlum
quote
If you're not--you know, in the theater, if you don't want to know what happens in Act 2 after Act 1, your play's going to close, and you're going to be on the unemployment line next Monday
-Fresh Air: Remembering Writer Robert Ludlum
quote
But, yeah, you try to get in the heads of people and you try to use the only tool you've got, which is imagination
-Fresh Air: Remembering Writer Robert Ludlum
quote
I get annoyed when a self-indulgent writer just shows off what he knows but doesn’t really tell a story. To me storytelling is first a craft. Then if you’re lucky, it becomes an art form. But first, it’s got to be a craft. You’ve got to have a beginning, middle and end
-The Writer's Almanac for May 25
quote
The quality of an author's work is not usually determined until after his death
-The Ludlum Conspiracy

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Voci della Community

"Robert Ludlum: Prolific thriller writer whose conspiratorial plots of unimaginable evil defined the airport novel"

The Guardian ((

"Peter Guttridge meets Robert Ludlum, whose tough novels have sold 195 million copies"

The Independent ((

"Welcome to Robert Ludlum's world...fast pacing, tight plotting, international intrigue"

The Plain Dealer ((

"More people are reading Robert Ludlum at any given time than any other writer"

Newsday ((

"Robert Ludlum is light-years beyond his literary competition in piling plot twist upon plot twist"

Chicago Tribune ((

"Robert Ludlum is the master of gripping, fast-moving intrigue"

The Daily Oklahoman ((

"A Robert Ludlum book needs no publicity to succeed"

The Washington Post ((

"Robert Ludlum stuffs more surprises into his novels than any other six-pack of thriller writers combined"

The New York Times ((

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