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Alan Hollinghurst

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Alan Hollinghurst
Alan Hollinghurst at the 2011 Texas Book Festival
Alan Hollinghurst at the 2011 Texas Book Festival
Born (1954-05-26) 26 May 1954 (age 70)
Stroud, Gloucestershire, England, Great Britain
OccupationWriter, translator
NationalityBritish
Alma materMagdalen College, Oxford
(BA, MLitt)
Period1975–
GenreNovel, poem, short story
Notable worksThe Swimming Pool Library
The Folding Star
The Spell
The Line of Beauty
The Stranger's Child
The Sparsholt Affair
Notable awardsNewdigate Prize
1974
Stonewall Book Award
1989
Somerset Maugham Award
1989
James Tait Black Memorial Prize
1994
Booker Prize
2004

Alan James Hollinghurst FRSL (born 26 May 1954) is an English novelist, poet, short story writer and translator. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the 1989 Somerset Maugham Award, the 1994 James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the 2004 Booker Prize.

Biography

Hollinghurst was born in Stroud, Gloucestershire, the only child of James Hollinghurst, a bank manager who served in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War,[1] and his wife, Elizabeth.[2][3] He attended Canford School in Dorset.[4]

Hollinghurst studied English at Magdalen College, Oxford, receiving a BA in 1975 and MLitt in 1979. His thesis was on the works of Ronald Firbank, E. M. Forster and L. P. Hartley, three gay writers.[5][6] While at Oxford he shared a house with future poet laureate Andrew Motion, and was awarded the Newdigate Prize for poetry in 1974, a year before Motion.

In the late 1970s he became a lecturer at Magdalen College, and then at Somerville and at Corpus Christi. In 1981 he moved on to lecture at University College London, and in 1982 he joined The Times Literary Supplement, where he was the paper's deputy editor from 1985 to 1990.[7][8]

Hollinghurst is gay[9][10][11] and lives in London.[12]

He won the 2004 Man Booker Prize for The Line of Beauty.[11] His next novel, The Stranger's Child, was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2011.[13]

Although he now lives with his partner Paul Mendez [14], Hollinghurst previously described: "I'm not at all easy to live with. I wish I could integrate writing into ordinary social life, but I don't seem to be able to. I could when I started [writing]. I suppose I had more energy then. Now I have to isolate myself for long periods."[15]

As a younger writer, before he received The Booker Prize, Hollinghurst discussed his early life and literary influences at length during a rare interview at his London home. This interview was published in 1997-98 in The James White Review. [16]

List of works

Poetry

  • Isherwood is at Santa Monica (Sycamore Broadsheet 22: two poems, hand-printed on a single folded sheet), Oxford: Sycamore Press 1975
  • Poetry Introduction 4 (ten poems: 'Over the Wall', 'Nightfall', 'Survey', 'Christmas Day at Home', 'The Drowned Field', 'Alonso', 'Isherwood is at Santa Monica', 'Ben Dancing at Wayland's Smithy', 'Convalescence in Lower Largo', 'The Well'), Faber, 1978
  • Confidential Chats with Boys, Oxford: Sycamore Press 1982 (based on the book Confidential Chats with Boys by William Lee Howard, MD., 1911, Sydney, Australia)[17]
  • 'Mud' (London Review of Books, Vol.4 No.19, 21 October 1982)

Novels

Alan Hollinghurst talks about The Stranger's Child on Bookbits radio.

Short stories

  • A Thieving Boy (Firebird 2: Writing Today, Penguin, 1983)
  • Sharps and Flats (Granta 43, 1993) Was incorporated into The Folding Star
  • Highlights (Granta 100, 2007)

Translations

As editor

Awards and honours

In 1974, Hollinghurst was awarded the Newdigate Prize.

In 1989, Hollinghurst won the Somerset Maugham Award for The Swimming Pool Library.

In 1994, he won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for The Folding Star.

In 2004, he won the Man Booker Prize for The Line of Beauty.[11]

In 2011, his novel The Stranger's Child was longlisted for the Booker Prize.[13]

He received the Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement from Publishing Triangle in 2011.

References

  1. ^ Stephen Moss, "'I don't make moral judgments,'" The Guardian, 21 October 2004.
  2. ^ Harvey, Giles (14 March 2018). "The Evolution of One of Fiction's Gay Liberators". The New York Times. Retrieved 3 April 2018.
  3. ^ Tonkin, Boyd; Jury, Louise (20 October 2004). "A beautiful victory at the Booker for tale of gay love in Thatcherite". The Independent. Retrieved 3 April 2018.
  4. ^ Andrew Anthony, "Alan Hollinghurst: The slow-motion novelist delivers," The Guardian, 11 June 2011.
  5. ^ "Article by Peter Rose". Theage.com.au. Retrieved 4 December 2013.
  6. ^ "About.com". Contemporarylit.about.com. 13 November 2013. Retrieved 4 December 2013.
  7. ^ "Hollinghurst's rise to Booker glory". BBC News. 19 October 2004. Retrieved 23 April 2010.
  8. ^ Johnson, Allan (2014). Alan Hollinghurst and the Vitality of Influence. London: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 62. ISBN 978-1349472505.
  9. ^ Hahn, Lorraine (11 May 2005). "Alan Hollinghurst TalkAsia Interview Transcript". TalkAsia. CNN. Retrieved 28 January 2009. I only chafe at the 'gay writer' tag if it's thought to describe everything that's interesting about my books.
  10. ^ Moss, Stephen (21 October 2004). "'I Don't Make Moral Judgments': Interview with Alan Hollinghurst, winner of the 2004 Booker prize". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on 12 February 2009. Retrieved 28 January 2009. Much as Chris Smith, the chairman of the Booker judges, tries to gainsay the fact, Hollinghurst is a gay novelist. This is a gay novel.
  11. ^ a b c "Alan Hollinghurst wins prestigious Booker Prize". The Advocate. 21 October 2004. Retrieved 8 February 2015. Out British author Alan Hollinghurst has won the Booker Prize...
  12. ^ Tillyard, Stella (November 2005). "Interview: Alan Hollinghurst". Prospect Magazine. Retrieved 28 January 2009.
  13. ^ a b "Man Booker Prize 2011 longlist announced". The Booker Prize Foundation. Archived from the original on 18 February 2014. Retrieved 22 October 2011.
  14. ^ Law, Katie (28 April 2020). "From Jehovah's Witness to gay sex worker to novelist: the extraordinary life story of Paul Mendez". Evening Standard. Retrieved 10 June 2020.
  15. ^ Gekoski, Rick (7 July 2011). "Writing is bad for you". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 July 2011.
  16. ^ Galligan, David. "Beneath the Surface of The Swimming-Pool Library: An Interview with Alan Hollinghurst." The James White Review 14.3 (Fall 1997): 1-7, http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/interviews/9258679/beneath-surface-swimming-pool-library; and "On Hampstead Heath: An Interview with Alan Hollinghurst." The James White Review 15.1 (Winter 1998): 10-13, http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/interviews/9246760/hampstead-heath-interview-alan-hollinghurst
  17. ^ Mendelssohn, Michèle (2016). "Poetry, Parody, Porn and Prose". Alan Hollinghurst: Writing Under the Influence: 40–45. doi:10.7228/manchester/9780719097171.003.0004. ISBN 9781526100351 – via Manchester University Press.
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