Video: Life is like a novel: more than 100 books, 5 marriages and 7 children of the queen of the bestselling book Daniela Steele
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
August 14 marks 71 years of the American writer Daniele Steele, who is called the queen of bestsellers and one of the most productive authors of mass literature - the total circulation of her books has reached 510 million copies, more than 500 million books have been sold, 23 novels have been filmed, more than 100 works have been published, which have stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for more than 400 weeks in a row. Many of the plots in her books are autobiographical - there were so many twists and turns, non-fictional dramas and romantic stories in her life that they would have been enough for a dozen more novels.
Her full name is Daniela Fernanda Dominica Muriel Emily Schulain-Steele, she was born in 1947 in New York in the family of an entrepreneur and the daughter of a Portuguese diplomat. Daniela's childhood was spent in France, where she often visited with her parents at receptions and dinner parties, at which the cream of society was gathered. She lived in luxury and did not know of refusal in anything, but later she did not like to remember her childhood - in her words, it was "cold and joyless", because her father married her mother solely for the sake of her connections and position in society, and for a luxurious the façade of their well-being hid mutual indifference. When the girl was 7 years old, her parents divorced, and Daniela and her father returned to New York.
Daniela began writing her first novel while still at university. By that time, she had already graduated from design school, married a banker and got a job at an advertising agency as a copywriter. Three years later, the couple had a daughter, but after 9 years the feelings of the spouses cooled down and they divorced. Shortly before the divorce, she released her first novel, "Home", which has been working on for all these years. And soon she remarried and continued to write novels. Since 1978, Daniela Steele has published several novels a year, once in the Guinness Book of Records as the only writer in the world capable of working on three novels at the same time, without resorting to the services of "literary slaves."
Uncomplicated women's novels caused a flurry of professional literary criticism, but enjoyed incredible popularity among female readers. They soon topped the lists of the best-selling books in this genre. Since 1983, her works have been repeatedly filmed. The secret of the success of Daniela Steele's novels has been debated for several decades, because there is a lot of such literature, and every year new authors appear, which are in no way inferior to the American writer. Many explain this phenomenon by the fact that she borrows plots for her books from her own life, and her persona is no less interesting than the heroines of her novels.
The third husband of the writer suffered from drug addiction, which he never got rid of. During the divorce, he wanted to take her son away from her, and she had to defend her rights through the courts. Daniela Steele captured her bitter life experience in the novels "The Promise of Passion" and "Remembrance".
The fourth marriage with the writer turned out to be more successful - the spouses adopted each other's children, they had five more children together. She tried to devote all her time to their upbringing, and she wrote books at night. However, after the eldest son of the writer Nick Train learned from a journalistic publication about who his real father was, he closed in on himself and refused to communicate with his parents. This caused scandals in the family, and this marriage also ended in divorce. After that, Nick became addicted to drugs and at the age of 19 committed suicide, suffering from bipolar mental disorder. These vicissitudes of life also became the plot of her next novel - in "Malice" the heroine's happy marriage collapses due to the fact that the tabloids have revealed the truth about her past. In memory of her son, she wrote the novel His Bright Light and founded the Nick Traina Charitable Foundation to help people with mental illness.
Immediately after the divorce, the writer got married for the fifth time. Financier and computer tycoon Tom Perkins became her chosen one. But this marriage also turned out to be short-lived - in 1999, Daniela Steele divorced again and published the novel "The Clone and Me", dedicating it to her ex-husband.
Daniela Steele still writes a lot and publishes several novels a year. In 2018, 4 of her books have already been published. In addition to her literary activities, the writer produces personalized perfumes and owns an art gallery. She lives in San Francisco, and many of her works are also set in this city. Despite the status of a public person, Daniela Steele rarely communicates with journalists and is published.
Her works have been translated into 35 languages and sold in 48 countries around the world. In 2013, she became a Knight Commander of the French Legion of Honor, which is the highest distinction and recognition of special merit in France. She still receives a lot of critical reviews, because most of her novels are of the same type, which is why the writer is called “the one who kneads fluff,” and her works are accused of artistic weakness and compared to soap operas. She continues to write about family relationships and love experiences, and the heroes of her novels are mostly from the world of the rich and famous.
When asked about what is most valuable to her in a work of art, she replied: "". Apparently, she is trying to implement this formula in her own works, because the readers of Daniela Steele's books are still enjoying the same success and are still selling well, although the writer still reacts painfully to criticism: "". But at the same time he adds: "".
Another popular modern writer listened to a lot of criticism in her address: 20 wise thoughts on the life of a real sorceress J. K. Rowling.
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