James Hawes (author)

Last updated

Hawes in 2019 James Hawes black and white photograph.jpg
Hawes in 2019

James Hawes (born 1960) is a British novelist and popular historian who has been an official bestseller in both genres. He has written theatrically released screen adaptations of two of his works, and has appeared as an on-screen contributor in BBCTV's Art That Made Us (2022) and Mozart: Rise of a Genius (2023).

Contents

Early life and education

Hawes grew up in Gloucestershire, Edinburgh and Shropshire. As an undergraduate, he studied German at Hertford College, Oxford. In 1985–1986 he was in charge of CADW excavations at Blaenavon Ironworks, now a UNESCO World Heritage site. He went on to study for a Ph.D. on Nietzsche and German literature 1900–1914 at University College, London in 1987–89, before lecturing in German at Maynooth University (Ollscoil Mhá Nuad), Sheffield University and Swansea University.[ citation needed ]

Writing

Hawes has published six novels, two of which he has adapted as films, starring Rhys Ifans and Michael Sheen respectively. The first two, A White Merc with Fins (1996) and Rancid Aluminium (1997) were both Sunday Times bestsellers.[ citation needed ]

In 2005 Random House published his novel Speak for England, which predicted Brexit so accurately that the Observer later declared "it deserves some kind of prescience prize" (Observer 23.4.2017). His Kafka biography, Excavating Kafka (2008), was adapted as a BBCTV documentary, Kafka Uncovered (2009). Englanders and Huns, a detailed history of Anglo-German relationships from 1864 to 1914, was shortlisted in the Paddy Power Political Books of the Year 2015.[ citation needed ]

His journalism and book-reviews have been widely and prominently published.


He taught on the Oxford University MSt. in Creative Writing from 2008-2023. Among his former students are Kit de Waal (My Name is Leon) Catherine Chanter (The Well) and Anne Youngson (Meet me at the Museum).[ citation needed ]

His book The Shortest History of Germany (Old St.) was published in May 2017. [1] It reached #2 in the Sunday Times non-fiction pb bestsellers (May 2018). The Shortest History of England (2020) reached #4 in The Times non-fiction pb bestsellers. His latest book is Brilliant Isles, the tie-in to the BBCTV series Art That Made Us (2022).


Bibliography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Franz Kafka</span> Bohemian writer (1883–1924)

Franz Kafka was an Austrian-Czech novelist and writer from Prague. He is widely regarded as a major figure of 20th-century literature; he wrote in German. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It typically features isolated protagonists facing bizarre or surrealistic predicaments and incomprehensible socio-bureaucratic powers. It has been interpreted as exploring themes of alienation, existential anxiety, guilt, and absurdity. His best known works include the novella The Metamorphosis and the novels The Trial and The Castle. The term Kafkaesque has entered English to describe absurd situations like those depicted in his writing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Irving</span> American-Canadian novelist and screenwriter (born 1942)

John Winslow Irving is an American-Canadian novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Terry Goodkind</span> American writer (1948–2020)

Terry Lee Goodkind was an American writer. He was known for the epic fantasy series The Sword of Truth as well as the contemporary suspense novel The Law of Nines (2009), which has ties to his fantasy series. The Sword of Truth series sold 25 million copies worldwide and was translated into more than 20 languages. Additionally, it was adapted into a television series called Legend of the Seeker, which premiered on November 1, 2008, and ran for two seasons, ending in May 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Political cartoon</span> Illustration used to comment on current events and personalities

A political cartoon, also known as an editorial cartoon, is a cartoon graphic with caricatures of public figures, expressing the artist's opinion. An artist who writes and draws such images is known as an editorial cartoonist. They typically combine artistic skill, hyperbole and satire in order to either question authority or draw attention to corruption, political violence and other social ills.

<i>Amerika</i> (novel) 1927 novel by Franz Kafka

Amerika, (German working title Der Verschollene, "The Missing") also known as Amerika (The Man Who Disappeared), Amerika: The Missing Person and Lost in America, is the incomplete first novel by author Franz Kafka (1883–1924), written between 1911 and 1914 and published posthumously in 1927. The novel originally began as a short story titled "The Stoker". The novel incorporates many details of the experiences of his relatives who had emigrated to the United States. The commonly used title Amerika is from the edition of the text put together by Kafka's close friend, Max Brod, after Kafka's death in 1924. It has been published in several English-language versions, including as Amerika, translated by Edwin and Willa Muir (1938); as Amerika (The Man Who Disappeared), translated by Michael Hofmann (1996); as Amerika: The Missing Person, translated by Mark Harman (2008), as Lost in America, translated by Anthony Northey (2010), and as The Man Who Disappeared (America), translated by Ritchie Robertson (2012).

<i>The Castle</i> (novel) 1926 novel by Franz Kafka

The Castle is the last novel by Franz Kafka. In it a protagonist known only as "K." arrives in a village and struggles to gain access to the mysterious authorities who govern it from a castle supposedly owned by Graf Westwest.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bernhard Schlink</span> German writer (born 1944)

Bernhard Schlink is a German lawyer, academic, and novelist. He is best known for his novel The Reader, which was first published in 1995 and became an international bestseller. He won the 2014 Park Kyong-ni Prize.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matthew Macfadyen</span> English actor (born 1974)

David Matthew Macfadyen is an English actor. Known for his performances on stage and screen, he gained prominence for his role as Mr. Darcy in Joe Wright's Pride & Prejudice (2005). He gained wider recognition for playing Tom Wambsgans in the HBO drama series Succession (2018–2023), for which he received two Primetime Emmy Awards, two BAFTA TV Awards, and a Golden Globe Award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brian Haw</span> English protester and peace campaigner (1949–2011)

Brian William Haw was a British protester and peace campaigner who lived for almost ten years in a peace camp in London's Parliament Square from 2001, in a protest against UK and US foreign policy. He began the Parliament Square Peace Campaign before the September 11 attacks, and became a symbol of the anti-war movement over the policies of both the United Kingdom and the United States in Afghanistan and later Iraq. At the 2007 Channel 4 Political Awards he was voted Most Inspiring Political Figure. Haw died of cancer in Berlin, where he had been receiving medical treatment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hampton Hawes</span> American jazz pianist

Hampton Barnett Hawes Jr. was an American jazz pianist. He was the author of the memoir Raise Up Off Me, which won the Deems-Taylor Award for music writing in 1975.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crimean Goths</span> Extinct Germanic ethnic group of Crimea

The Crimean Goths were Greuthungi-Gothic tribes or Western Germanic tribes that bore the name Gothi, a title applied to various Germanic tribes that remained in the lands around the Black Sea, especially in Crimea. They were the longest-lasting of the Gothic communities. Their existence is well attested through the ages, though the exact period when they ceased to exist as a distinct culture is unknown; as with the Goths in general, they may have become diffused among the surrounding peoples. In his Fourth Turkish letter, Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq (1522–1592) describes them as "a warlike people, who to this day inhabit many villages".

Mark Harman is an Irish-American translator, most notably of Franz Kafka's work, and professor emeritus at Elizabethtown College, Pennsylvania, United States, where he served as Professor of German & English and College Professor of International Studies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Franz Kafka bibliography</span>

Franz Kafka, a German-language writer of novels and short stories who is regarded by critics as one of the most influential authors of the 20th century, was trained as a lawyer and later employed by an insurance company, writing only in his spare time.

Ian James Forrester Mortimer, , is a British historian and writer of historical fiction. He is best known for his book The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England, which became a Sunday Times bestseller in paperback in 2010.

"A Fratricide" is a short story by Franz Kafka written between December 1916 and January 1917. It is one of Kafka's most realistically descriptive and graphically violent stories, and tells the story of a murderer, Schmar, and his victim, Wese. Although no clear motive for the murder is given anywhere in the story, it can be ascertained that the crime is a matter of jealous passion. Apart from the title, there is no obvious indication that the two characters are brothers, and the title may be an allusion to the biblical story of Cain and Abel.

The Kafka Project is a non-profit literary research initiative founded in 1998 at San Diego State University. Working on behalf of the Kafka estate in London, England, the SDSU Kafka Project is working to recover materials written by Franz Kafka, the widely acclaimed modernist author, stolen by the Gestapo in 1933. The search continues in Eastern Europe and Israel.

David Farr is a British writer, theatrical director and Associate Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

<i>Kafkas Soup</i> 2005 cookbook by Mark Crick

Kafka's Soup is a literary pastiche in the form of a cookbook. It contains 14 recipes each written in the style of a famous author from history. As of 2007 it had been translated into 18 languages and published in 27 countries. Excerpts from the book have appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald and the New York Times. Theatrical performances of the recipes have taken place in France and Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ottla Kafka</span> Sister of Franz Kafka

Ottilie "Ottla" Kafka was the youngest sister of Kafka. His favourite sister, she was probably also the relative closest to him and supported him in difficult times. Their correspondence was published as Letters to Ottla. She was murdered in the Holocaust.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Joyce</span> American-born fascist and propaganda broadcaster (1906–1946)

William Brooke Joyce, nicknamed Lord Haw-Haw, was an American-born fascist and Nazi propaganda broadcaster during the Second World War. After moving from New York to Ireland and subsequently to England, Joyce became a member of Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists (BUF) from 1932, before finally moving to Germany at the outset of the war where he took German citizenship in 1940.

References

  1. J.C. (20 August 2017). "On almost every indicator, Germany's south is doing better than its north". The Economist.
  2. Hickling, Alfred (8 January 2005). "All for empire". The Guardian .
  3. Bayard, Louis (1 August 2008). "How Kafka-esque is Kafka?". Salon .
  4. Alberge, Dalya (2 August 2008). "Franz Kafka's porn brought out of the closet". The Times .
  5. Kavenna, Joanna (17 August 2008). "Franz Kafka, party animal". The Observer .
  6. "Englanders and Huns: The Culture-Clash which Led to the First World War (Hardback)". Waterstones .
  7. "The Shortest History of Germany". Old Street Publishing.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00fr8j9