José Latour
AUTHOR

José Latour

Tap the gear icon above to manage new release emails.
José Latour was born in Havana, Cuba, on April 24, 1940. By the time the Cuban Rev­o­lu­tion came to power, José, who was 19, had become an ardent sup­porter. He joined the Min­istry of Trea­sury as a junior finan­cial ana­lyst and trans­la­tor and later moved on to the Cuban Cen­tral Bank. From there he trans­ferred to the Min­istry of Sugar, end­ing up in the State Com­mit­tee of Finance, where from 1977 onwards he swelled the ranks. Shuf­fling papers, how­ever, was not chal­leng­ing enough. In that same year José started writ­ing crime fic­tion in his spare time. His first three nov­els (Pre­lu­dio a la Noche, Medi­anoche Ene­miga and Fauna Noc­tura), set in pre-revolutionary Havana, were pub­lished by Edi­to­r­ial Letras Cubanas in 1982, 1986 and 1989. The fourth (Choque de Leyen­das), was launched in 1998, nine years after he first deliv­ered the man­u­script to the publisher. He resigned his posi­tion as global finan­cial ana­lyst in the Min­istry of Finance to become a full-time writer. In 1998 he was elected vice-president for Latin Amer­ica of the Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion of Crime Writers. In 1994 José deliv­ered to his pub­lisher The Fool, a novel based on a real-life case of cor­rup­tion in the min­istries of the Inte­rior and the Armed Forces that was uncov­ered in 1989. This book was con­sid­ered coun­ter­rev­o­lu­tion­ary and José was labeled an “enemy of the people.” Cer­tain that nei­ther The Fool nor the books he wanted to write would get pub­lished in Cuba as long as all pub­lish­ing houses were state-owned, reject­ing ide­o­log­i­cal sub­servience and adamant about pur­su­ing a career as a nov­el­ist, José took a shot at writ­ing in English. His first novel in that lan­guage, Out­cast, was pub­lished in the U.S., six West­ern Euro­pean coun­tries, Brazil and Japan. It got flat­ter­ing reviews and was nom­i­nated for an Edgar. Since, he has penned Havana Best Friends (2002), Havana World Series (2003), Com­rades in Miami (2005), The Far­away War, under the pseu­do­nym Enrique Clio (2009) and Crime of Fash­ion (2009). Seek­ing cre­ative fic­tion and fear­ing dic­ta­to­r­ial repres­sion, the author and his fam­ily moved to Spain in August 2002 and to Canada in Sep­tem­ber 2004. In Octo­ber 2012 he released as an ebook Rid­ers of Land and Tide.
Read more Read less
Not an Audible member?
From £7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Best Sellers

Are you an author?

Help us improve our Author Pages by updating your bibliography and submitting a new or current image and biography.