Charles Lambert (author)

Last updated

Charles Lambert (born October 1953) is an English novelist and short-story writer.

Contents

Biography

Charles Lambert was born in October 1953 in Lichfield, England. [1] He went to a number of schools in central England before winning a scholarship to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, to read English in 1972. [2] During his time at Cambridge, he was involved with Blue Room, a poetry society founded by John Wilkinson and Charlie Bulbeck. His first publication, Of Western Limits, was a poetic collaboration with John Wilkinson following a walking holiday in Scotland.

In 1976 he moved to Milan and, apart from brief spells in Ireland, Portugal and London, he has lived and worked in Italy since then. His occupations have included academic translator, university language teacher, journalist and editor for international organizations.

Fiction

His first novel, Little Monsters, a Good Housekeeping selection, was published in 2008, the same year as his collection of prize-winning stories, The Scent of Cinnamon and Other Stories; the title story won an O. Henry Prize. [3]

Any Human Face, his second novel and the first in a trilogy set in modern-day Rome, was welcomed as "a sophisticated literary thriller" [4] by The Guardian and as "a wonderful book, beautifully written" [5] by Eurocrime.co.uk., while for The Daily Telegraph it is "a slow-burning, beautifully written crime story that brings to life the Rome that tourists don’t see – luckily for them". [6]

The second novel in the trilogy, The View from the Tower, came out in February 2014. Mystery Scene called it "a superb, deeply thought-out book". [7] For Crime Review it was "intriguing and exquisitely written". [8] The novel was subsequently published in Italian, with the title Occasioni di Morte. [9]

Later that year, Lambert published a memoir/fictional autobiography composed of 241 120-word sections and entitled With a Zero at its Heart. [10] Selected as one of the best books of the year by the Guardian, which described the book as "elegantly written and with considerable emotional clout…poetic, tender and funny", [11] the cover and page design were the work of Vaughan Oliver.

The Children’s Home was published in 2016. Described by The New York Times as "disquieting", [12] the novel received starred reviews from Kirkus Reviews [13] and Booklist , which called it "a magical, mesmerizing tale about the courage it takes to confront the unknown". [14] The novel has been translated into French as La Maison des Enfants. [15] This was followed in 2017 by the publication of Two Dark Tales, [16] praised by the Sunday Express as "odd, disturbing and original". He has also published a novella, The Slave House, based on his experiences in post-war Portugal.

Prodigal, [17] described by its publisher as an "atypical coming-of-age tale", appeared in August 2018. It was shortlisted for the first Polari Prize in 2019. [18]

The Bone Flower, [19] published in September 2022, was described by the San Francisco Book Review as a "classy ghost story, with just the right amount of atmosphere and subtle scares." [20] Birthright, [21] a psychological thriller set in Rome, appeared in spring 2023.

Non-fiction

Lambert's non-fictional work includes recollections of the poets Jonathan Williams [22] and Dom Sylvester Houédard; [23] critical essays on gay poetry; and, for Critical Quarterly, disability in George R. R. Martin's cycle, A Song of Ice and Fire , in an essay entitled "A tender spot in my heart". [24]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">M. John Harrison</span> English author and critic

Michael John Harrison, known for publication purposes primarily as M. John Harrison, is an English author and literary critic. His work includes the Viriconium sequence of novels and short stories (1971–1984), Climbers (1989), and the Kefahuchi Tract trilogy, which consists of Light (2002), Nova Swing (2006) and Empty Space (2012).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Graham Greene</span> English writer and literary critic (1904–1991)

Henry Graham Greene was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading novelists of the 20th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eugenio Montale</span> Italian writer (1896–1981)

Eugenio Montale was an Italian poet, prose writer, editor and translator, recipient of the 1975 Nobel Prize in Literature and one of the finest literary figures of the 20th century.

<i>Le Morte dArthur</i> 1485 reworking of existing tales about King Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory

Le Morte d'Arthur is a 15th-century Middle English prose reworking by Sir Thomas Malory of tales about the legendary King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, Merlin and the Knights of the Round Table, along with their respective folklore. In order to tell a "complete" story of Arthur from his conception to his death, Malory compiled, rearranged, interpreted and modified material from various French and English sources. Today, this is one of the best-known works of Arthurian literature. Many authors since the 19th-century revival of the legend have used Malory as their principal source.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emma Donoghue</span> Irish-Canadian writer (born 1969)

Emma Donoghue is an Irish-Canadian novelist, screenwriter, playwright and literary historian. Her 2010 novel Room was a finalist for the Booker Prize and an international best-seller. Donoghue's 1995 novel Hood won the Stonewall Book Award and Slammerkin (2000) won the Ferro-Grumley Award for Lesbian Fiction. She is a 2011 recipient of the Alex Awards. Room was adapted by Donoghue into a film of the same name. For this, she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Connor Iggulden is a British author who writes historical fiction, most notably the Emperor and Conqueror series. He also co-authored The Dangerous Book for Boys with his brother Hal. In 2007, Iggulden became the first person to top the UK fiction and nonfiction lists at the same time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michel Faber</span> Dutch writer

Michel Faber is a Dutch-born writer of English-language fiction, including his 2002 novel The Crimson Petal and the White, and Under the Skin (2000) which was adapted for film by Jonathan Glazer, starring Scarlett Johansson. His novel for young adults, D: A Tale of Two Worlds, was published in 2020. His book, Listen: On Music, Sound and Us, a non-fiction work about music, came out in October 2023.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gianni Amelio</span> Italian film director

Gianni Amelio is an Italian film director.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Olen Butler</span> American fiction writer

Robert Olen Butler is an American fiction writer. His short-story collection A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1993.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Almond</span> British childrens writer (born 1951)

David Almond is a British author who has written many novels for children and young adults from 1998, each one receiving critical acclaim.

Clive John Sinclair was a British author who published several award-winning novels and collections of short stories, including Hearts of Gold (1979), Bedbugs (1982) and The Lady with the Laptop (1996).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Olga Tokarczuk</span> Polish writer and activist (born 1962)

Olga Nawoja Tokarczuk is a Polish writer, activist, and public intellectual. She is one of the most critically acclaimed and successful authors of her generation in Poland. She was awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature as the first Polish female prose writer for "a narrative imagination that with encyclopedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life". For her novel Flights, Tokarczuk was awarded the 2018 Man Booker International Prize. Her works include Primeval and Other Times, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, and The Books of Jacob.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louise Welsh</span> British fiction writer and dramatist, born 1965

Louise Welsh is an English-born author of short stories and psychological thrillers, resident in Glasgow, Scotland. She has also written three plays, an opera, edited volumes of prose and poetry, and contributed to journals and anthologies. In 2004, she received the Corine Literature Prize.

Andrew Miller is a British journalist and author, best known for his debut novel, Snowdrops, published under the name A.D. Miller. He studied literature at Cambridge and Princeton and worked in television before joining The Economist magazine as a reporter in 2000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jess Walter</span> American novelist (born 1965)

Jess Walter is an American author of seven novels, two collections of short stories, and a non-fiction book. He is the recipient of the Edgar Allan Poe Award, and was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2006.

Paul Burston is a Welsh journalist and author. He worked for the London gay policing group GALOP and was an activist with ACT UP before moving into journalism. He edited, for some years, the LGBT section of Time Out and founded the Polari Prize.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor</span> Kenyan writer (born 1968)

Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor is a Kenyan writer who is the author of novels, short stories and essays. She won the 2003 Caine Prize for African Writing for her story "Weight of Whispers".

John E. Derhak is a Canadian-born, American novelist, writer, and historian. His works of fiction include, Tales from the moe.Republic, Chill Your Cockles,The Bones of Lazarus, and The Guardian Angel of Death.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Karla Suárez</span> Cuban writer (born 1969)

Karla Suárez is a Cuban writer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pierre Gamarra</span>

Pierre Gamarra was a French poet, novelist and literary critic, a long-time chief editor and director of the literary magazine Europe.
Gamarra is best known for his poems and novels for the youth and for narrative and poetical works deeply rooted in his native region of Midi-Pyrénées.

References

  1. ↑ "Charles Lambert | Bookblog". bookblog.salonelibro.it. Archived from the original on 25 June 2020.
  2. ↑ "Charles Lambert".
  3. ↑ "The O. Henry Prize Stories".
  4. ↑ O'Connell, John (21 May 2010). "Thrillers roundup". The Guardian.
  5. ↑ "Review - Any Human Face by Charles Lambert".
  6. ↑ "The best books under the sun". 15 July 2010.
  7. ↑ "Mystery Scene".
  8. ↑ "The View from the Tower Review".
  9. ↑ Occasioni di Morte
  10. ↑ With a Zero at its Heart
  11. ↑ Smart, James (16 May 2014). "With a Zero at its Heart by Charles Lambert review – a life in 24 chapters". The Guardian.
  12. ↑ Ciuraru, Carmela (30 December 2015). "Six New Books, Including One by Christopher Buckley". The New York Times.
  13. ↑ "THE CHILDRen's HOME by Charles Lambert".
  14. ↑ Children's Home, by Charles Lambert.
  15. ↑ La Maison des Enfants
  16. ↑ Two Dark Tales
  17. ↑ Prodigal
  18. ↑ "Polari prize shortlist 2019".
  19. ↑ The Bone Flower
  20. ↑ https://sanfranciscobookreview.com/product/the-bone-flower/
  21. ↑ Birthright
  22. ↑ "Jacket 38 - Late 2009 - Jonathan Williams Feature: Charles Lambert: Acts of Kindness".
  23. ↑ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 October 2016. Retrieved 18 September 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  24. ↑ "A tender spot in my heart"
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.