Deni Ellis Béchard

Deni Ellis Béchard
Béchard in Cambridge, MA, December 2015
Nationality	American Canadian
Alma mater	Marlboro College; Middlebury College; University of Guelph
Genre	novel, journalism, memoir, photography
Notable awards	Commonwealth Writers Prize

Deni Ellis Béchard (born British Columbia) is a Canadian-American novelist.

His novel, Vandal Love (2006), won the 2007 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book. It was a finalist for the 2009 Combat des livres, broadcast on Radio-Canada.

Life

Béchard was born to French-Canadian and American parents. He graduated from Marlboro College in 1997, from Middlebury College, and from the University of Guelph. He was French editor at The Adirondack Review from 2002-2004.

Though, in French, "Deni" is normally spelled "Denis," his mother named him "Deni." In French, the "s" on "Denis" is silent, and his mother removed it because she wanted English speakers to pronounce his name correctly. In 2015, he changed his middle name to Ellis, taking his mother's maiden name to honor her.

He has traveled in over sixty countries and doesn't have a permanent home, though he is often in Boston, New York, and Montreal.

Works

• Vandal Love, Doubleday Canada, 2006, ISBN 978-0-385-66051-8
• Cures for Hunger: A Memoir, Milkweed Editions, 2012, ISBN 978-1-57131-331-7
• Empty Hands, Open Arms: the Race to Save Bonobos in the Congo and Make Conservation Go Viral, Milkweed Editions, 2013
• Of Bonobos and Men: a Journey to the Heart of the Congo, Milkweed Editions, 2015
• Into the Sun, Milkweed Editions, forthcoming, 2016

External links

• "Disobedient Ancestors", Harvard Divinity Bulletin, Vol. 37, No. 2 & 3 (Spring/Summer 2009)
• "La dérive du continent", Voir, Tristan Malavoy-Racine, 17 Janvier 2008
• www.denibechard.com