The Author

Jeremy Mercer is a Canadian author, journalist, and translator.

He worked as a crime reporter for the Ottawa Citizen newspaper until 1999 and likes to believe he played a fundamental role in the country's legalisation of marijuana for medical purposes. During this same time, he wrote two true-ish crime novels; the first was made into a film, the second was nominated for a literary prize of some repute.

After moving to Paris prior to the millenium, Mercer lived at the infamous Shakespeare and Company bookstore for five months. This experience was the basis for his memoir Time Was Soft There (St. Martin's Press, New York), also known as Books, Baguettes & Bedbugs (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London). In Paris, he was also a founder of the Kilometer Zero Project, an arts collective that published magazines, produced theatre, and organized performances in Paris, London, Brooklyn, Marseille, and Beijing.

Mercer has recently been exploring the question of the death penalty. This will culminate with publication of his book examining the case of the last man executed in France (When the Guillotine Fell, St. Martin's) in 2008. On the same theme, he has also translated Robert Badinter's L'Abolition into English (Abolition: One Man's Battle Against the Death Penalty, Northeastern University Press, 2008). Abolition is the inside story of how the death penalty was abolished in France, written by the lawyer who dedicated a decade of his life to the cause.

Mercer currently lives in Marseille, France where is beginning research on his next subject.

Contact Jeremy Mercer at :

jeremy@kilometerzero.org

Contact his agent at :

Kristin Lindstrom :

kristin@lindstromliterary.com

Praise for his work :

"Jeremy Mercer's tale of George Whitman and his beloved bookstore is a book of revelations, for it tells the hard-to-discover true story of George's life."

-- Lawrence Ferlinghetti

"An affectionate, revealing slice of life at the most singular, eccentric and magical of bookshops."

-- Michael Palin

"Mercer is a fine writer with a keen and jaundiced eye."

-- Chicago Tribune

"(A) tightly written, insightful memoir of Left Bank literary radicalism. A great read, both funny and quietly moving."

-- San Francisco Chronicle

"There are enough shocks and secrets to make this account that unusual thing - the story of a bookshop that's a real page-turner ... (a) small classic of literary life."

-- Sunday Times

"A romanticized version of the bum's life."

-- The New Yorker

"Tender, disenchanted, self-castigating, and bittersweet, Books, Baguettes and Bedbugs is a book that is constantly surprising."

-- Independent on Sunday