Edward Docx | |
|---|---|
 Edward Docx in 2017 | |
| Born | 1972 (age 52–53) Northern England |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Nationality | British |
| Notable works | Novels: The Calligrapher, Pravda, The Devil's Garden, Let Go My Hand Essays: Postmodernism is Dead, Walking with Karl, The Peak, The Clown. |
Edward Docx (born 1972 [1] ) is an English writer.
His first novel, The Calligrapher , was published in 2003. He is an associate editor of New Statesman Magazine .
Docx was born in the north of England. He was educated at St Bede's College in Manchester and then at Christ's College, Cambridge, [1] where he read English Literature and was President of the JCR. [1]
His mother was a classical music agent and he has described his upbringing as eccentric. [2] [3] He is the eldest child of a family of seven children. He lives in London.
Docx's first novel, The Calligrapher (2003), was short-listed for both the William Saroyan prize [4] and the Guilford Prize. The San Francisco Chronicle called it the best debut book of the year. [5]
This was followed by Pravda (2007, entitled Self Help in the UK), which was long-listed for the Man-Booker Prize (2007) [6] and won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize (2007).
His third novel was The Devil's Garden (2011).
His fourth novel, Let Go My Hand , was published in April 2017 (also by Picador).
Docx's work is often extremely well received by critics in the UK [7] [8] and America. [9] [10] The New York Times has described him as 'fiendishly clever' [11] and The Independent as a 'virtuoso phrasemaker' and one of the most humane writers of his generation. [12] Docx was cited as one of the 21 most gifted young writers from around the world by The Hay Festival Committee (2008). [13]
Docx also works as a screenwriter for television and film. He is a contributing writer on the television adaptation of Slow Horses. [14] He has co-written several film scripts with the Australian director P.J. Hogan and has worked variously with Andrew Davies, Ringside Productions, Rainmark and Mandabach on television drama in the UK. [15]
Docx co-writes the Swift and Hawk series of children's books with Matthew Plampin under the pen name Logan Macx. [16] The first book in the series, Swift and Hawk: Cyberspies, was published in 2022.
Docx has been compared to writers as diverse as Dickens, [7] Dostoyevsky [9] and Coetzee. [17] His writing is often praised for its descriptive skill. [18] [19] His work is chiefly noted for its vitality and the attention given to character as well as style. A review in The New Yorker says "Docx has a gift for assessing “the exact shape and weight of other people’s inner selves, the architecture of their spirit” and even his most ancillary characters flare into being, vital and insistent." [20]
Docx has contributed to British and American newspapers and magazines. In the UK, his journalism most often appears in TheGuardian, [21] the New Statesman [22] or Prospect magazine. [23] Docx was short-listed for The George Orwell Prize for Journalism in 2012. [24] He was short-listed in 2014 for the Foreign Press Association Feature of the Year. [25] In 2015, he was again long-listed for the George Orwell Rowntree Prize, [26] and for a third time for the Orwell-Rowntree in 2021. [27] He has worked in the House of Commons and has interviewed several British party political leaders.
Docx reviews contemporary fiction for The Guardian. [21] He has also worked extensively on television and radio. He presented his own show for BBC Television [28] and BBC Radio. [29] He has written widely on the cultural importance of literature and is a regular teacher of the Guardian's Masterclass series on fiction. [30]
During the leadup to the 2016 Brexit vote, Docx campaigned publicly for the UK to remain in the European Union. [31]
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Self Help is a novel by English author Edward Docx, published in 2007 by Picador; it won Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize that year and was also long-listed for the Man Booker Prize. The novel has received positive reviews, his description of cities being compared to both Dickens and Dostoevsky.
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