Author Bio
• Birth—1972
• Where—Hammersmith, England, UK
• Education—Chelmsford College; University of East London
• Awards—Elle Style Award-Best Young Writer;
• Currently—teachers at University of Kent
Scarlett Thomas is an English author, who has written some 10+ novels, including PopCo (2005), The End of Mr. Y (2006), and Our Tragic Universe (2011), and Oligarchy (2019). She teaches English literature at the University of Kent.
She is the daughter of Francesca Ashurst, and attended a variety of schools, including a state junior school in Barking, and a boarding school for eighteen months. She studied for her A levels at Chelmsford College and achieved a First in a degree in Cultural Studies at the University of East London from 1992-1995.
Her first three novels feature Lily Pascale, an English literature lecturer who solves murder mysteries. Each of the succeeding novels is independent of the others.
In 2008 she was a member of the Edinburgh International Film Festival jury, along with Director Iain Softley and presided over by actor Danny Huston.
She has taught English Literature at the University of Kent since 2004, and has previously taught at Dartmouth Community College, South East Essex College and the University of East London. She reviews books for the Literary Review, Independent on Sunday, and Scotland on Sunday.
Thomas shares with Ariel, her protagonist in The End of Mr. Y, a wish to know everything:
I'm very much someone who wants to work out the answers. I want to know what's outside the universe, what's at the end of time, and is there a God? But I think fiction's great for that--it's very close to philosophy.
She is currently studying for an MSc in Ethnobotany, and working on her ninth novel, The Seed Collectors.
In 2001 she was named by the Independent as one of 20 Best Young Writers.
In 2002 she won Best New Writer in the Elle Style Awards, and also featured as an author in New Puritans, a project led by the novelists Matt Thorne and Nicholas Blincoeconsisting of both a manifesto and an anthology of short stories. (From Wikipedia.)