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 Joanne Harris
Harris, Joanne (1964- ), contemporary British novelist. Part French and part British, she finds
motivation from her family history for her various works, especially for best
selling novel Chocolat. Born in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, she is the daughter of an English father and a French
mother, Robert and Jeannette Short. As the granddaughter of an English couple
that owned a sweetshop, Harris and her family resided above the shop during
the first few years of her life. Through this aspect of her family history,
and the fact that her French great-grandmother was labeled a witch and
healer, Harris was inspired to write Chocolat. Harris was educated at Wakefield Girl’s
High School and Barnsley Sixth Form College.
At St. Catherine’s College, Cambridge, Harris also studied medieval romances. In 1991, she married Kevin Harris, a
freelance researcher; the couple has one daughter, Anouchka. She has a career history of accounting, teaching,
and writing.
The Evil Seed, published in 1992, was Harris’ first novel and
contains the tale of a vampire. It was
followed by Sleep, Pale Sister in 1994, a
Gothic Romance. After her great
success with Chocolat in 1998, the novelist was
able to end her teaching career. Harris states that she finds pleasure in writing
about France because she has always felt like a foreigner and Chocolat, a story about passion and magic in a small French
town, received excellent responses from viewers. Harris and her novel Chocolat gained even more popularity when it was adapted into a
best selling motion picture. Overall, Harris enjoyed the film version of her
tale, although she was somewhat bothered by the alterations that made the
film “more acceptable for a cinema audience.”
Following Chocolat, Harris produced Blackberry Wine in 2000, which
involves the “renewal of a desiccated man”; the novel did not receive a
popular reaction. In 2001, Harris had Five Quarters of the
Orange published, which is also set in France. In Five Quarters of the Orange, Harris follows a more historical path that involves many aspects of
war. There were mixed responses to this novel because Harris continued to
utilize food as a major theme. In
2002, Harris created Coastliners, a story set in
Brittany involving two rivaling communities. The French Kitchen was also written in 2002; however, Harris took a
different path and produced a cookbook rather than a novel. Holy Fools, published in
2004, is Harris’ latest work. Also set in France, it is based on a French history text that interested
Harris. Residing in Barnsley, Harris continues to write on a regular basis.
427 words
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Bibliography
Harris,
Joanne. Chocolat. NY: Penguin Books, 1999.
“Joanne
Harris.” Contemporary Authors
Online.
12 Feb. 2004.
Thomson Corporation Company. Ferrum College, Stanley Library.
17 Feb 2004. http://galenet.galegroup.com.
“Joanne
Harris.” Dictionary of
Literary Biography, Volume 271:
British and Irish
Novelists since 1960. Bruccoli Clark Layman Book. Ed. Merritt Moseley.
Asheville, NC: University of North Carolina, Gale Group, 2002.
Ferrum College Stanley Library. 17 Feb. 2004.
http://galenet.galegroup.com.
“Joanne
Harris.” St. James Guide to
Horror, Ghost & Gothic Writers. St. James Press,
1998. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hill, MI: The Gale
Group, 2004. Ferrum College Stanley Library. 17 Feb. 2001.
http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet.BioRC.
Joanne Harris. 20 Feb. 2004. http://www.joanne-harris.co.uk.html.
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