埃里卡·伦纳德

E. L. James

生卒: 1963 –
国籍: 英国
外文名: E. L. James

照片：ActuaLitté，CC BY-SA 2.0，来自维基共享资源「E. L. James - 2019 (cropped).jpg」（经缩小）。

生平与创作

埃里卡·伦纳德（英语：Erika Leonard，1963年3月7日—），笔名为E·L·詹姆丝（E. L. James），是一位英国畅销的情色小说作家，2011年出版首作《格雷的五十道阴影》一鸣惊人，更在十一周内突破一百万册，打破了美国作家丹·布朗的《达芬奇密码》的三十六周旧纪录，《格雷的五十道阴影》又成为首本突破百万大关的Kindle电子书，其作品更被电影公司买下版权。伦纳德更因此成为《时代杂志》2012年百大风云人物。

个人简历

伦纳德生活在伦敦西部，曾任职电视行政，其丈夫是编剧尼尔·伦纳德（Niall Leonard），他们育有两个十几岁的儿子。大学时期，在肯特大学修读历史。

以上文字摘自维基百科「埃里卡·倫納德」（去掉了参考文献等尾部小节），按 CC BY-SA 4.0 使用，作者为维基百科的各位编者。

中文维基百科的条目比较短，下面附上英文维基百科的内容（英文原文）：

Erika Mitchell (born 7 March 1963), known by her pen name E. L. James, is a British author. She wrote the best-selling Fifty Shades series of erotic romance novels, which spawned a multimedia franchise including a film trilogy of the same name. Prior to this, she wrote the Twilight fan fiction "Master of the Universe" that served as the basis for the Fifty Shades series under the web name Snowqueens Icedragon. In 2019, she published her first book unconnected with the fictional world of Fifty Shades, The Mister, to negative critical reaction.

The Fifty Shades novels have sold over 150 million copies worldwide, over 35 million copies in the United States and set the record in the United Kingdom as the fastest selling paperback of all time. In 2012, Time magazine named her one of "The World's 100 Most Influential People".

Early life

Erika Mitchell was born on 7 March 1963, in Willesden, to a Chilean mother and a Scottish father who was a BBC cameraman. She was brought up in Buckinghamshire.

James was educated at the independent Pipers Corner School and at Wycombe High School, a state grammar school for girls in the town of High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, followed by the University of Kent in South East England where she studied history.

After leaving university, James became a studio manager's assistant at the National Film and Television School in Beaconsfield.

Career

James says the idea for the Fifty Shades trilogy began as a response to the vampire novel series Twilight. In late 2008, James saw the movie Twilight, and then became intensely absorbed with the novels that the movie was based on. She read the novels several times over in a period of a few days and then set out to write a sequel to the books. Between January and August 2009, she wrote two such books in quick succession. She says she then discovered the phenomenon of fan fiction, and this inspired her to publish her novels as Kindle books under the pen name "Snowqueens Icedragon". Beginning in August 2009, she then began to write the Fifty Shades books.

James has spoken of her shock at the success of the books. "The explosion of interest has taken me completely by surprise", she said. James has described the Fifty Shades trilogy as "my midlife crisis, writ large. All my fantasies in there, and that's it." She did not start to write until January 2009, as she revealed while still active on FanFiction.Net: "I started writing in January 2009 after I finished the Twilight saga, and I haven't stopped since. I discovered Fan Fiction in August 2009. Since then I have written my two fics and plan on doing at least one more. After that ... who knows?"

In August 2013, James topped the Forbes' list of the highest-earning authors due to her book sales with earnings of US$95 million which included US$5 million for the film rights to Fifty Shades of Grey.

Personal life

James married Niall Leonard, a novelist and screenwriter from Northern Ireland, in 1987. They have two sons. As of 2012, they live in Brentford, west London.