Kate Atkinson | |
---|---|
Born | York, England | 20 December 1951
Occupation | Writer |
Alma mater | University of Dundee |
Genre | Novel, short story. |
Children | 2 |
Website | |
www |
Kate Atkinson MBE (born 20 December 1951) is an English writer of novels, plays and short stories. [1] She is known for creating the Jackson Brodie series of detective novels, which has been adapted into the BBC One series, Case Histories . [1] [2] She won the Whitbread Book of the Year prize in 1995 in the Novels category for Behind the Scenes at the Museum , winning again in 2013 and 2015 under its new name, the Costa Book Awards. [1]
The daughter of a shopkeeper, Atkinson was born in York, the setting for several of her books. [3] She studied English literature at the University of Dundee, gaining her master's degree in 1974. [1] Atkinson subsequently studied for a doctorate in American literature, with a thesis titled "The post-modern American short story in its historical context". [3] She failed at the viva (oral examination) stage. After leaving the university, she took on a variety of jobs, from home help to legal secretary and teacher. [4]
Her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, won the 1995 Whitbread Book of the Year and went on to be a Sunday Times bestseller. Since then, she has published further novels, as well as plays and short stories. [1] [5] Some of her books are part of a series of novels, starting with Case Histories, which feature the character of Jackson Brodie as a private investigator and former police inspector. [1] Atkinson has criticised the media's coverage of her work – when she won the Whitbread award, for example, it was the fact that she was a "single mother" who lived outside London that received the most attention. [6] In a 2018 interview, she declared that she did not spend time in great literary parties or the London high life. [6]
In 2009, she donated the short story "Lucky We Live Now" to Oxfam's Ox-Tales project, which was comprised of four collections of UK stories written by 38 authors. Atkinson's story was published in the Earth collection. [7] [8]
In March 2010, Atkinson appeared at the York Literature Festival, giving a world-premier reading from an early chapter from her novel Started Early, Took My Dog (2010), which is set mainly in the English city of Leeds.
Atkinson was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2011 Birthday Honours for services to literature. [9] In 2015, she became the first author to win a Costa Book Award three times when her book A God in Ruins won the Novel of the Year award. [10] [11] On 30 November 2018, she was the guest on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs . [6]
The first four Jackson Brodie novels have been adapted by other writers for the BBC under the series titled Case Histories , featuring Jason Isaacs as Brodie. [2]
In 2015 in the United States, Shonda Rhimes was in the process of developing a pilot called The Catch , based on a treatment written by Atkinson, and starring Mireille Enos. [16] [17]
Her 2013 novel Life After Life was screened as a BBC drama of the same name in 2022, with Thomasin McKenzie in the role of Ursula. [18]
Atkinson has been married twice: while a student, to the father of her first daughter, and subsequently to the father of her second daughter. [3]
Atkinson lived in Whitby, North Yorkshire, [8] for a time, but now lives in Edinburgh. [5]
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