Author Bio
• Birth— November 5th 1955
• Where— Eastbourne, East Sussex, England, UK
• Education—B.A., Cambridge University
• Currently—lives in London, England
Rupert Thomson is the author of nine critically acclaimed novels. He was once described by the critic James Wood as "one of the strangest and most refreshingly un-English voices in contemporary fiction," and has been compared to writers as various as Franz Kafka, J. G. Ballard, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Charles Dickens, Elmore Leonard, and Mervyn Peake.
Background
Following the sudden death of his mother, Thomson was educated as a boarder at Christ's Hospital School. At the age of seventeen, he was awarded a scholarship to Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, where he studied Medieval History and Political Thought. He worked as a copywriter in London from 1978 to 1982, before abandoning his job to write full-time. Thomson has lived in many cities throughout the world, including New York, Sydney and Barcelona. He currently lives in South London.
Novels
• 1987 - Dreams of Leaving
• 1991 - The Five Gates of Hell
• 1993 - Air and Fire
• 1996 - The Insult
• 1998 - Soft
• 1999 -The Book of Revelation
• 2005 - Divided Kingdom
• 2007 - Death of a Murderer
• 2013 - Secrecy
The Insult, Thomason's fourth novel, was shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Prize and was chosen by David Bowie as one of his "100 Must-Read Books of All Time." The Book of Revelation, his sixth novel, was made into a feature film by the Australian writer/director, Ana Kokkinos. His 2007 novel, Death of a Murderer, was shortlisted for the Costa Novel of the Year.
With This Party's Got to Stop, Thomson ventured into non-fiction for the first time, exploring events surrounding his father's death and his complex relationships with his brothers and his extended family. The memoir won the Writers' Guild Non Fiction Book of the Year. Secrecy, his 2013 novel, is based on the life and work of the eccentric Sicilian wax artist, Gaetano Giulio Zumbo. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 4/5/2014.)
Secrecy (Thomson) - Author Bio
Article Index
Page 2 of 4