ALEXANDRA LAPIERRE
Author
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French by birth, yet educated in the United States, Alexandra Lapierre is a graduate of the Sorbonne and the University of Southern California. Novelist and biographer, she is the author of many bestsellers translated worldwide. She was elected "Donna per la Cultura," by the City of Rome, Italy, and awarded the prestigious "Grand Prix des Lectrices de ELLE" for her biography on the American pioneer Fanny Stevenson, wife of the writer Robert Louis Stevenson. Her book on the first Italian woman painter from the Renaissance, Artemisia Gentileschi, was voted "Book of the Week" by the British BBC and "Best Book on the Seventeenth Century" by the Sorbonne University. It was published by Grove Atlantic in the United States and by Chatto and Windus in Great Britain.

Between Love and Honour, published in the US by Amazon Crossing, on the true adventures of a Tchetchen prince in the XIXth century Russia, has been awarded the "Prix des Romancières" in 2009. L'Excessive ("The Extravagant Miss C.") , the true story of an extravagant British bigamous duchess, was a runaway bestseller in France in 2010.

Alexandra Lapierre has been nominated Chevalier in the "Order of Arts and Letters" by the French government.

Je te vois reine des quatre parties du monde, published by Flammarion in 2013, "I'll Make you Queen of the World" portrays a woman in the midst of the most violent and chauvinistic milieu of the Spanish history that of the Conquistadors. It wan many awards among which "The Best Historial Fiction of the Year, for 2013".

The Woman of a Thousand Names, published by ATRIA BOOKS, Simon and Schuster Group, in New York, on Marsh 31st 2020 (Moura la mémoire incendiée, published by Flammarion mid-Marsh 2016), has been awarded the prestigious "Grand Prix de l'héroïne Madame Figaro", is the story of a Russian aristocrat in the upheaval of the Bolchevist revolution : a woman with a thousand of lives and a thousand of faces. Called Maria Zakrevskaïa, then Madame Benckendorff, then Baroness Budberg, Moura was a British agent’s lover, Maxim Gorki’s muse, H. G. Wells’ partner, and admired by London’s intelligentsia. She socialized with the Twentieth Century’s finest: the Tsar, Staline, Churchill and de Gaulle. Adored by those she loved, despised by those who found her elusive, Moura did indeed exist.
On her footsteps, Alexandra Lapierre has made researches in libraries around the world for three years. She has slipped into her character’s contradictions to paint a great portrait of a lady. Her talent as a novelist and her eye, both lucid and kind, brings life to many captivating figures, whom shed light on some unknown moments of our recent history.

Her Most recent book, Belle Greene, published by Europa Editions in June 2022 is the story of a young American woman with no money in the early 1900. She is fascinated by old books and rare manuscripts. Against all odds, she manages to climb up the social ladder and to become the creator – the first and only lady directress - of the fabulous Morgan Library, built by the tycoon J.P Morgan in New York. Thanks to her wits, her intelligence and her beauty, she conquers the rich and greedy circles of collectors and is toasted as the most powerful woman in the international art world of museums and libraries. Yet she is hiding a secret. Passing for white, she is actually African American, the daughter of a well-known Black activist who sees her desire to hide her origins as a betrayal. Torn between history’s ineluctable imperatives and personal freedom, Belle’s drama, which plays out in a violently racist America, is one that resonates forcefully and illuminatingly even today.

Based on a true story and the the fruit of years of research, Alexandra Lapierre’s novel recounts the struggles, victories, and heartbreaks of a woman who is free, determined, daring, and exuberantly alive.

Alexandra Lapierre is based in Paris, but lives around the world, where her books take her.


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