Frédéric Dard

Frédéric Charles Antoine Dard 29 June 1921 in BourgoinJallieu Isère France 6 June 2000 in Bonnefontaine Fribourg Switzerland also known under the pen name SanAntonio was a French writer Known as an author of crime fiction and as a humorist he was noted for his ability to blend the two genres Though Dard also wrote serious fiction his most successful books used a farcical tone During his lifetime Dard was the bestselling Frenchlanguage author in the World He wrote more than four hundred novels including the SanAntonio book series dozens of plays and several screenplays under his own name and a variety of pseudonyms Dard used SanAntonio both as his most famous pen name and as the name of the titular hero of his main series The SanAntonio books eventually became so popular that Dard started using that pen name also for books that did not belong to the series Dard was best known for his raunchy humor and his inventive use of the French language notably French slang Frédéric Dard was born to a workingclass family his father was a metalworker and his mother was employed in a bakery He first grew up in SaintChef before settling in Lyon where he was mostly raised by his grandmother as his parents faced financial difficulties and his father struggled with alcoholism Dard was born with a malformed shoulder and a disabled left arm which caused him to endure exclusion and bullying as a child Dards disability remained a lifelong source of discomfort for him and he made constant efforts to hide it Dard started writing stories during his childhood with the encouragement of his grandmother While in high school he began an apprenticeship in commerce but had little interest in his studies and took refuge in reading He showed a preference for genre fiction notably the hardboiled Americanstyle crime novels of British authors Peter Cheyney and James Hadley Chase His first published work was a short story titled Le Monocle révélateur The TellTale Monocle that appeared in a childrens magazine during his adolescence While still a teenager Dard had the opportunity to meet Lyon author Marcel E Grancher who gave him his first job as a journalist Dard published his first novel La Peuchère in 1940 That same year he won his first literary award the prix Lugdunum for his book Monsieur Joos To advance his career Dard left Lyon for the Parisian region with his family settling in Les Mureaux in 1948 To earn a living he produced all sort of writings assignments In 1949 Dard wrote the crime novel Réglezlui son compte which would become the first volume of his SanAntonio series he found the name of his protagonist by looking randomly at a map of the United States eventually choosing the name of the city in Texas The book sold poorly but it was bought by Armand de Caro who headed Fleuve Noir Frances leading publishing house of genre fiction De Caro saw potential in the book and took Dard under contract Source Article Frédéric Dard from Wikipedia in English licensed under CCBYSA