David Ramus

David Ramus is a novelist and screenwriter whose work has been published in fourteen languages around the world. The New York Times Book Review calls his writing “dashing and confident,” while Time Magazine describes his novels as “stories to savor.” His past novels include Thief of Light, The Gravity of Shadows, and On Ice.

Ramus brings a dramatic, colorful personal history to bear on his writing, beginning with a childhood punctuated by repeatedly discovering his mother in a series of suicide attempts, while essentially raising himself against a backdrop of the sun, surf, and society of Palm Beach. In his twenties he split from his family, and made his own way to a highly successful career in the art world dealing internationally in impressionist and modern master paintings, with galleries in New York And Atlanta. Along the way Ramus nurtured a passionate relationship with China White Heroin and lived a life along the knife edge of excess. Ultimately, the economy blipped, the art career collapsed, he beat the heroin addiction, served time in federal prison, and, turning to his lifelong love of the novel, began to write.

Thief of Light, his first novel, drew international attention from publishers and critics when it was released in 1994. He finished his second novel in prison, writing long-hand on yellow legal pads. Now, 34 years clean and sober, Ramus lives in downtown Los Angeles with his wife and a large dog named Alice. He is currently working on two screenplays optioned by Hollywood studios and another novel.