Joseph O'Neill (born 1964)
| Joseph O'Neill | |
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 O'Neill at the 2010 Texas Book Festival |
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| Born | 1964 (age 47–48) Cork, Ireland |
| Occupation | lawyer, fiction writer, cultural critic |
| Period | 1991-present |
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Joseph O'Neill (born 1964 in Cork, Ireland) is a Irish novelist and non-fiction writer. O'Neill's novel Netherland was awarded the 2009 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.[1]
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[edit] Life
O'Neill, who has half-Irish and half-Turkish ancestry,[2] was born in Cork Ireland, in 1964. O'Neill's parents moved around much in O'Neill's youth: O'Neill spent time in Mozambique as a toddler and in Turkey until the age of four, and he also lived in Iran.[3] From the age of twelve, O'Neill lived in The Netherlands, where he attended boarding school at The Hague. He read law at Girton College, Cambridge, preferring it over English because "literature was too precious" and he wanted it to remain a hobby. O'Neill started off his literary career in poetry but had turned away from it by the age of 24.[4] After a year off to write his first novel, O'Neill became a barrister at the English Bar, where he practised for ten years at a barristers chambers in the Temple, principally in the field of business law. He is a member of chambers at 3 Hare Court.[5] Since 1998 he has lived in New York City.
O'Neill speaks English, French and Dutch.[6]
[edit] Writing
O'Neill is the author of three novels, the most recent of which, Netherland, was published in May 2008 and was featured on the cover of the New York Times Book Review, where it was called "the wittiest, angriest, most exacting and most desolate work of fiction we’ve yet had about life in New York and London after the World Trade Center fell".[7] It was also included in the New York Times list of the 10 Best Books of 2008.[8] Literary critic James Wood called it "one of the most remarkable postcolonial books I have ever read". In an interview with the BBC in June 2009 US President Barack Obama revealed that he was reading it, describing it as "an excellent novel."[9] Among the books on the longlist, it was the favourite to win the Man Booker Prize.[10] However, on September 9, 2008, the Booker nominee shortlist was announced, and the novel failed to make the list.[11] The book was also nominated for the Warwick Prize for Writing (2008/9) and made it to the long list of that prize announced in November 2008.
He is also the author of a non-fiction book, Blood-Dark Track: A Family History, which was a New York Times Notable Book for 2002 and a book of the year for the Economist and the Irish Times.
Additionally, O'Neill writes literary and cultural criticism, most regularly for the Atlantic Monthly.
[edit] Works
[edit] Novels
- This Is the Life (Faber & Faber; Farrar Straus & Giroux) (1991)
- The Breezes (Faber & Faber) (1996)
- Netherland (Pantheon; Fourth Estate) (2008)
[edit] Non-fiction
- Blood-Dark Track: A Family History (Granta Books) (2001)
[edit] Short fiction
Anthologized in:
- Phoenix Irish Short Stories (ed. David Marcus) (1999)
- Dislocation: Stories from a New Ireland (ed. Caroline Walsh) (Carroll & Graf) (2003)
- Faber Book of Best New Irish Short Stories (ed. David Marcus) (Faber & Faber) (2007)
[edit] Journalism
- Archive of Atlantic writings
- Archive of pieces for New York magazine
- Archive of pieces for the New York Times
- The Ascent of Man (Granta, issue 72, Winter 2000)
[edit] References
- ^ PEN/Faulkner Award Goes to Joseph O'Neill, The Washington Post, 26 February 2009
- ^ "Joseph O'Neill, The New Immigrant Experience". NPR. November 26, 2008. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97468340.
- ^ http://marksarvas.blogs.com/elegvar/the-joseph-oneill-interview/
- ^ http://marksarvas.blogs.com/elegvar/the-joseph-oneill-interview/
- ^ http://www.3harecourt.com/Barristers/Barrister.aspx?MemberID=40
- ^ http://marksarvas.blogs.com/elegvar/the-joseph-oneill-interview/
- ^ Garner, Dwight (18 May 2008). "The Ashes". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/18/books/review/Garner-t.html.
- ^ "The 10 Best Books of 2008". New York Times. 3 December 2008. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/14/books/review/10Best-t.htm. Retrieved May 7, 2010.
- ^ Webb, Justin (2 June 2009). "Obama Interview: the transcript". BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/news/2009/06/090602_obama_transcript.shtml.
- ^ Anthony, Andrew (September 7, 2008). "Perfect delivery". The Guardian (London). http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/sep/07/celebrity. Retrieved May 7, 2010.
- ^ Bosman, Julie (9 September 2008). "Booker Prize Shortlist Is Announced". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/10/books/10book.html. Retrieved May 7, 2010.
[edit] External links
- "Post 9/11, a New York of Gatsby-Size Dreams and Loss", by Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times, May 16, 2008. Review of Netherland.
- "Pen in One Hand, Cricket Bat in the Other", by Charles McGrath, The New York Times, May 17, 2008. Article on McNeill.
- "What Did You Do in the War?", by Colin Harrison, The New York Times, February 17, 2002. Review of Blood-Dark Track.
