"Perfume: The Story of a Murderer" is a 1985 novel by the German writer Patrick Suskind.The novel, set in eighteenth century Paris, revolves around a newborn baby that is left to die in an alley by it's mother. The baby is rescued and given the name Grenouille but the priest that is caring for him quickly realizes that there is something strange about the boy. He does not appear to … [Read more...]
Patrick Suskind
Patrick Suskind was born on March 26th, 1949 in Ambach by Starnberger See, near Munich Germany. His father was a journalist and writer who is famous for writing a collection of essays on the Nazi era called "From the Dictionary of n Inhuman." His mother was a sports trainer. Suskind was schooled in a Bavarian village called Holzhausen and later attended the University of Munich to study medieval and modern history, although he never officially graduated.
In 1974, he moved to Paris with the financial support of his parents and began writing short fiction and screenplays. In 1981, he wrote the play "Der Kontrabal" (or "The Double Bass"). The play was a success and was staged over five hundred times. After this, Suskind began to make a name for himself as a playwright throughout the 1980's. He also continued to write screenplays and later won the Screenplay Prize of the German Department of Culture for his screenplay of a film called "Rossini."
Suskind's best-known work, "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer" was published in 1985 and remained on the bestseller list of the German news magazine Der Spiegel for nine years afterward. The novel was made into a German movie in 2006.
He has written other novels, including "The Pigeon" (1988), "The Story of Mr. Sommer" (1991) and "Three Stories and a Reflection' (1996).
Today, Suskind lives in Munich by Lake Starnberg and occasionally at Montolieu in France. He has withdrawn from the literary world and lives as a recluse, never taking interviews or speaking to reporters.