“Online communities are an expression of loneliness.” – Joanne Harris
About Joanne Harris
Joanne Michèle Sylvie Harris, MBE (born 3 July 1964) is an English author, best known for her award-winning novel Chocolat which was later turned into a successful film. The film adaption was released in 2000, directed by Lasse Hallström and starring Juliette Binoche, Judi Dench, Alfred Molina, Lena Olin and Johnny Depp. It was nominated for 8 BAFTAS and 5 Oscars.
Her writing began at an early age and was strongly influenced by Grimms’ Fairy Tales and the tales of Charles Perrault, as well as local folklore and Norse mythology.
Her first novel, The Evil Seed, was published in 1989, with only limited success. A second novel, Sleep, Pale Sister, shows the way in which her style developed from horror-pastiche to literary ghost story.
In 1999, her third novel, Chocolat, a darkly magical modern folk-tale, thematically based on food and set in the Gers region of France, reached No. 1 in the Sunday Times’ bestseller list. The book won the Creative Freedom Award in 1999 and was shortlisted for the 1999 Whitbread Novel of the Year Award.
Since Chocolat, all of Harris’s books have been UK bestsellers. Harris’s books are now published in over fifty countries and have won a number of UK and international awards. (Source – Wikipedia)