Will Self

Will Self was born in London in 1961. He graduated from Oxford University and began writing fiction, working as a cartoonist for the New Statesman and City Limits, a London listings magazine. Nominated in 1993 as one of Granta magazine’s 20 ‘Best of Young British Novelists 2’, his fiction includes the short-story collections: The Quantity Theory of Insanity (1991), winner of the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize; Grey Area (1994); and Tough, Tough Toys for Tough, Tough Boys (1998). Cock and Bull (1992) consists of two novellas, and he is also the author of several novels, including: My Idea of Fun (1993); Great Apes (1997); How the Dead Live (2000); and Dorian (2002), a retelling of Oscar Wilde’s classic tale set in late 20th-century Britain.His non-fiction includes Perfidious Man (2000), described by his publisher as ‘an examination of modern masculinity’ with photographs by David Gamble, and Sore Sites (2000), a collection of writings about architecture. In addition, he has published collections of journalism, including Junk Mail (1995), and Feeding Frenzy (2001), which includes writing from the period 1995-2000. In 2002 he took part in a ‘reality art’ project in a one-bedroom flat on the 20th floor of a tower block in Liverpool, writing a short piece of fiction while being watched by members of the public. The event was sponsored by Liverpool Housing Action Trust to mark the passing of high-rise housing in the city. His novel, The Butt (2008), won the 2008 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize.

A regular broadcaster on television and radio and contributor to numerous newspapers and magazines, Will Self lives in London. A book of non-fiction, Psychogeography, was published in 2007, and a selected short stories, The Undivided Self, in 2008. His most recent novel is Umbrella (2012), shortlisted for the 2012 Man Booker Prize for Fiction. In 2012 Will Self was appointed Professor of Contemporary Thought at Brunel University.