Did Laura Esquivel, a Mexican novelist, or Harold Robbins, an American author, have a novel that was later developed into an award-winning film?
Harold Robbins Harold Robbins (May 21, 1916 – October 14, 1997) was an American author of popular novels. One of the best-selling writers of all time, he penned over 25 best-sellers, selling over 750 million copies in 32 languages.
Ron Terpening Ron Terpening (born Ronnie Harold Terpening on May 3, 1946) is an American writer, professor of Italian, and editor. Though he started his writing career as an author of young-adult fiction, where the father/son conflict is a major theme, he is best known for his later novels of suspense, most of which are set, at least in part, in Italy, reflecting his academic background as a scholar of Italian culture. His thriller "League of Shadows", for example, deals with the Fascist Era in Italy and its aftermath in the contemporary world. A later international thriller, "Nine Days in October", came out of the author’s course research on the forces of order and disorder in contemporary Italy and follows a band of criminals and ex-terrorists as they attempt to carry out an assassination plot. All of his novels, including "Storm Track" and "Tropic of Fear", the latter set in Paraguay, are noted for their strong sense of place. In most of his novels, his protagonist is usually a common man placed in a situation where powerful forces are arrayed against him.