Jean-Patrick Manchette

Jean-Patrick Manchette (Marseille, 1942 - Paris, 1995) was a French crime novelist, screenwriter, translator and critic. From 1971 he reinvented French crime fiction as the neo-polar, anchoring it in the social criticism of its time and writing in a dry, behaviourist style. His novels include L'Affaire N'Gustro (1971), Nada (1972), Fatale (1977) and La Position du tireur couche (1981). He wrote the album Griffu with Jacques Tardi in 1978, and Tardi went on to adapt several of his novels as graphic novels, collected in English by Fantagraphics as Streets of Paris, Streets of Murder. Manchette also translated some thirty books into French, among them Watchmen.