De onde viemos peter mayle biography death

It was the bestselling book that inspired endless Britons to queue up and buy homes among olive groves in the south of France.

Peter Mayle, an Englishman who started a writing career in his 30s with sex-education books for children before making a spectacularly successful switch to the travel .

Peter Mayle, author of A Year in Provence, has died at 78 in a hospital near his home in the Provence village of Vaugines following a short illness, his American publisher said last night. Tapping into the middle-class dream of buying and renovating a second home in southern France, his book sold almost two million copies in the UK and led to a boom in Britons descending on the region.

Author Peter Mayle has died at the age of 78 after a brief illness, his publisher said. The memoir, recalling his life as an expat in the village of Menerbes, sold almost six million copies and was translated into more than 20 languages.

His book A Good Year was the basis for the eponymous film directed by Ridley Scott and starring actor Russell Crowe.

Mr Mayle and his wife Jennie settled in Vaugines following a move to the Hamptons in Long Island, New York, to get away from fans who constantly visited his rural French home made famous by his book. I invited him in, plied him with wine and signed his book at least twice. He was followed over the course of several years by hundreds of others.

A Year in Provence, which recounted the difficulties first-time expats are likely to experience, captured the imagination of thousands. Speaking 20 years after writing it, Mr Mayle said he had fallen in love with Provence while trying to write a novel. His works included the best-seller A Year in Provence, detailing his move from England to France, as well as educational books and children's stories.

Aged 18, he joined Shell Oil in London as a trainee, and then became an advertising executive. Unlike the novel, it was not well received by critics — being placed at number ten on a Radio Times list of the worst television programmes ever made. In an interview with the Daily Mail in , Mr Mayle was asked where he most felt at home. It was not until the s that Mr Mayle relocated to France, intending to write a novel.

I enjoy what I do so I will do it until I can barely lift a finger to the keyboard. He was