Maxim Jakubowski

Maxim Jakubowski (1944) is a crime, erotic, science fiction and rock music writer and critic.

Contents

• Maxim jakubowski on donald westlake part 1 of 2
• Maxim jakubowski on donald westlake part 2 of 2
• References

Jakubowski was born in 1944 in England to Russian-British and Polish parents, but raised in France. Jakubowski has also lived in Italy and has travelled extensively. Jakubowski edited the science fiction anthologies Twenty Houses of the Zodiac (1979), for the 37th World Science Fiction Convention (Seacon '79) in Brighton, and Travelling Towards Epsilon, an anthology of French science fiction. He also contributed a short story to that anthology.

He has worked in book publishing for many years, which he left to open the Murder One bookshop, the UK's first specialist crime and mystery bookstore. He contributes to a variety of newspapers and magazines, and was for eight years the crime columnist for Time Out and, from 2000 to 2010, the crime reviewer for The Guardian. He is also the literary director of London's Crime Scene Festival and a consultant for the International Mystery Film Festival, Noir in Fest, held annually in Courmayeur, Italy. He is one of the leading editors in the crime and mystery and erotica field, in which he has published many major anthologies, including the annual Mammoth Books of Best New Erotica and Best British Crime. In addition, he has over 80 other anthologies to his credit, including titles on Vintage Crime, Pulp Fiction, Jack the Ripper, the Kama Sutra and countless areas of popular culture. He has edited several classic lists such as Black Box Thrillers for Zomba Books, Blue Murder for Simon & Schuster and (later) Xanadu, Eros Plus and Neon and the MaXcrime imprint for British publishers John Blake Publishing. He is a past winner of the Karel and the Anthony awards. He is also a translator from French and Italian.

His novels include It's You that I Want to Kiss, Because She Thought She Loved Me, The State of Montana, On Tenderness Express, Kiss Me Sadly, Confessions of a Romantic Pornographer and I Was Waiting for You. His short story collections are Life in the World of Women, Fools for Lust and the collaborative American Casanova. He is a regular broadcaster on British TV and radio and was voted the fourth Sexiest Writer of 2007 on a poll on the Crimespace website. His latest novel was published in 2011, Ekaterina and the Night.

He is strongly rumoured to be one of the authors behind the bestselling erotic author Vina Jackson, but this has never been confirmed.

For many years, Jakubowski was Chair of the Arthur C. Clarke Award and is now chair and judge for the Crime Writers' Association Debut John Creasey Dagger; he is also on the committee of the Crime Writers' Association and a frequent commentator on radio and TV. He is currently joint Vice Chair of the Crime Writers' Association.

He wrote the short story "Un Avocat pour Dolorès" under the nom de plume of "Adam Barnett-Foster". When asked why he took the name when he was already known and well-respected, he is quoted as shrugging and saying Le pseudonyme fou vient de frapper - "The mad pseudonym just hit me..."

Jakubowski also wrote a number of books on rock music during the 1980s.

His website is at www.maximjakubowski.co.uk, and lists his complete bibliography.