Photo: PEN American Center / CC BY 2.0 (source: Wikimedia Commons)
My Take
Kerr is, to me, a model of how to make literary fiction and genre fiction shake hands. His Bernie Gunther novels, set in and around Nazi-era Berlin, pull off something difficult: they entertain like hardboiled thrillers while taking history's darkest corners seriously. The Birmingham-educated mind behind them clearly did the research, yet never let it smother the storytelling. I admire that he refused to stay in one lane, dabbling in science fiction, children's books and screenwriting too. The Berlin Noir trilogy holds up beautifully, and losing him in 2018 felt like losing a writer still very much at the height of his powers.
Overview
Philip Ballantyne Kerr (22 February 1956 – 23 March 2018) was a Scottish author, best known for his Bernie Gunther series of historical detective thrillers.
Summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
1. Profile
- Name (English)
- Philip Kerr
- Name (Japanese)
- フィリップ・カー
- Reading
- ふぃりっぷ・かー
- Born
- February 22, 1956 – March 23, 2018
- Zodiac / Chinese zodiac
- Pisces / Monkey
- Origin
- Edinburgh, United Kingdom
- Blood type
- Private
- Height
- Private
- Agency
- Private
- Occupation
- writer / poet lawyer / science fiction writer / children's writer / screenwriter
2. Background
- Elementary school
- Private
- Junior high
- Private
- High school
- Private
- University
- University of Birmingham
Awards & achievements
- 1994 Prix Mystère de la Critique
- 2010 Barry Award for Best British Crime Novel
- 2014 Palle Rosenkrantz Prize
- 2009 RBA International Prize for Crime Writing
- 2009 CWA Historical Dagger
- 2009 Prix du Polar Européen
3. Relationships
- Spouse
- Private
- Children
- Private
- Parents
- Private
- Siblings
- Private
4. Personality
Motto
Private
5. Works & records
| Category | Title | Role | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Notable work | Berlin Noir trilogy | — | |
| Notable work | The One From the Other | — | |
| Notable work | A Quiet Flame | — |
6. Links
- Official sitehttp://www.philipkerr.org
- Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%95%E3%82%A3%E3%83%AA%E3%83%83%E3%83%97%E3%83%BB%E3%82%AB%E3%83%BC
Writer — see all → · More people from United Kingdom →
7. About this entry
Tags
- Last updated
- 2026-06-02
Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public items are marked "Private / Unknown". English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.