Raymond Khoury
Raymond Khoury | |
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Raymond Khoury (Arabic: ريمون خوري) (born in Beirut, Lebanon) is a Lebanese screenwriter and novelist, best known as the author of the 2006 New York Times bestseller The Last Templar.
Biography
Early years
Raymond Khoury was born in
Early career
After a few months working at a small architectural firm in
In 1996, Khoury optioned the rights to the Melvyn Bragg novel The Maid of Buttermere and wrote the screenplay adaptation of it. Robert De Niro soon announced to Variety that he would be producing the movie and playing the lead role. Khoury has also written for the BBC shows Spooks (known as MI:5 in the United States) and Waking the Dead.
Novels
During the early days of his screenwriting career, before he was even able to attract an agent, Khoury completed a screenplay that he called The Last Templar, an "epic" thriller about a search for the lost treasure of the Knights Templar. After 18 months of research and writing, Khoury lent the script to a friend, who immediately suggested that Khoury turn it into a novel. With Khoury's permission, the friend submitted the screenplay to a book agent. Within a few months (in 1996), Khoury was offered a six-figure advance by a major publisher to create a book based on the screenplay, with the stipulation that the book exclude all references to religion. Although at that time Khoury had not sold any of his other writing work, he declined the money and the book deal.[2]
His pet screenplay set aside, Khoury worked on his screenplays for several years, building a successful career for himself in London and in Hollywood, before a new agent at the William Morris Agency, who he had joined at that point, read his screenplay of The Last Templar and encouraged him to adapt it into a novel. Finally, in September 2002, Khoury began researching and writing the novelized version of his screenplay, which took three years to write.[2] The novel sold quickly, and was first released in the U.K. in 2005. It soon became a New York Times bestseller, spending 11 weeks on the hardcover fiction list, and a Number 1 bestseller overseas. It has been translated into 38 languages and published in over 40 countries.[3] Although the book shares some general thematic concepts with those of Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown, Khoury devised his plot before Brown's novels were released.[2]
Following the release of The Sanctuary in August 2007, Khoury wrote his third novel
Personal
Khoury divides his time between Beirut, London and Dubai.[5]
Bibliography
Sean Reilly and Tess Chaykin series
# | Title | Publication year |
---|---|---|
1 | The Last Templar | 2005 |
2 | The Templar Salvation | 2010 |
3 | The Devil's Elixir | 2011 |
4 | Rasputin's Shadow | 2013 |
5 | The End Game | 2016 |
Stand-alone novels
Title | Publication year |
---|---|
The Sanctuary | 2007 |
The Sign | 2009 |
The Ottoman Secret aka Empire of Lies | 2019 |
Sources
- ^ "About the Author: Bio". LastTemplar.Com. 2006. Archived from the original on 2007-02-10. Retrieved 2007-02-20.
- ^ a b c d Schaftt, Lars (2006). "Author Interview". LastTemplar.Com. Archived from the original on 2006-11-12. Retrieved 2007-02-20.
- ^ "International Editions". LastTemplar.Com. 2006. Archived from the original on 2007-01-25. Retrieved 2007-02-20.
- ISBN 978-0-525-95097-4. Retrieved 16 May 2009.
- ^ Official Website "About Me" page. Retrieved 2017-09-30.