Lawrence Osborne

Last updated

Lawrence Osborne
Lawrence Osborne author photo.jpg
Born1958 (1958) (age 65)
London, England
Education Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge; Harvard University
Notable awards Edgar Award nomination Best Novel (2019)
Best American Short Stories (2012)
The New York Times Notable Book (2018)

Lawrence Osborne (born 1958) is a British novelist and journalist who is currently residing in Bangkok. Osborne was educated at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, [1] and at Harvard University, and has since led a nomadic life, residing for years in Poland, [2] France, Italy, Morocco, the United States, Mexico, Thailand, and Istanbul.

Contents

Osborne has been published widely as a long-form journalist in the United States, most notably in The New York Times Magazine , [3] The New Yorker , [4] Gourmet , Salon , Playboy , and Condé Nast Traveler . His writings about wine and spirits appeared in a regular column called Cellar in Men's Vogue . [5] He has also been an occasional Op-Ed columnist at Forbes.com and is a frequent contributor to Newsweek International , The Daily Beast , and The Wall Street Journal Magazine. His feature for Playboy, "Getting a Drink in Islamabad", won a 2011 Thomas Lowell Award for Travel Journalism.

He is the author of the novel Ania Malina; [6] a book about Paris, Paris Dreambook; [7] the essay collection The Poisoned Embrace; [8] a controversial book about autism called American Normal: The Hidden World of Asperger Syndrome; [9] and three subsequent travel books published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux between 2004 and 2009: a book about wine, The Accidental Connoisseur; [10] The Naked Tourist; [11] and an account of expatriate life in Bangkok called Bangkok Days. [12] His short stories have appeared in many American magazines. His story "Volcano", originally published in Tin House , was selected for inclusion in The Best American Short Stories 2012 . His novel The Forgiven was published in 2012 to widespread acclaim. It was selected by The Economist as one of the Best Books of the Year for 2012. [13] [14] Osborne's next book, The Wet and the Dry , a travelogue about Islam and alcohol, was published in 2013. It was included in the Top 10 Books of 2013 by The New York Times Book Review critic, Dwight Garner.

Reception

Reviewing Osborne's 2004 nonfiction wine-world travelogue The Accidental Connoisseur in The New York Times , Tony Hendra wrote: "Osborne is a new voice in the wine world, smart, generous, perceptive, funny, sensible, free of cant and arrogance and self-interest." [15]

A novel, The Ballad of a Small Player , was published by Hogarth in spring 2014 to considerable critical acclaim, both in the United States and the United Kingdom. The New York Times selected it as one of its 100 Notable Books of 2014. [16] NPR also included it in its Year's Best Books of 2014. [17] Paul French in the Los Angeles Review of Books wrote that "Osborne's novel is the best on contemporary China since Malraux's." [18] Neel Mukherjee picked it as one of his Books of the Year in The New Statesman . [19] In the London Sunday Times , Robert Collins wrote: "A modern Graham Greene.... into this relatively quiet period for British fiction, someone remarkable and unexpected has emerged fully armed with a formidable, masterly grip on the British novel. At precisely the point where most novelists start to show signs of flagging, Osborne has hit his creative, fictional stride...and has arrived as a thrilling, exceptional talent in British fiction's landscape." [20]

The Glass Kingdom by Lawrence Osborne.jpg

His third novel, Hunters in the Dark , was published by Hogarth in May 2015 and received glowing reviews on both sides of the Atlantic. Arifa Akbar, literary editor of The Independent in London, selected it as one of her 15 Best Novels of 2015, [21] and the novel was notably praised by Neel Mukerjee in The Guardian [22] and by Lee Child in The New York Times Book Review. [23] Nishant Dahiya reviewed it for NPR. [24] British critic David Sexton wrote in the Evening Standard : "Those comparisons with Graham Greene aren't even flattering any more." [25] [26] Anita Sethi reviewed it in The Guardian with praise for its stylistic finesse. [27]

Beautiful Animals was published by Hogarth in July 2017 and was featured on the cover of The New York Times Book Review with a review by the Japanese-American novelist Katie Kitamura. [28] In her long review of the novel in The Washington Post , Lionel Shriver wrote: "So let's not mince words. This is a great book." [29]

Osborne was asked by the Raymond Chandler estate to write the next Philip Marlowe novel, released in 2018. Widely and favorably reviewed, Only to Sleep was selected by philosopher John Gray as his Book of the Year in the New Statesman, [30] and was included in The New York Times 100 Most Notable Books of 2018 [31] and NPR's Best Books of 2018. [32] It was selected by William Boyd in the same category in The Guardian. [33]

The Glass Kingdom was published in 2020 and was included in the New York Times Notable 100 Books of 2020. It was also reviewed at length in a profile of the author by John Gray in The New Statesman. [34]

Films

As reported by The Hollywood Reporter , Osborne sat on the jury of the 2017 Macau Film Festival. [35] The screen version of The Forgiven was announced at Cannes in 2018 with director John Michael McDonagh and Ralph Fiennes, Jessica Chastain and Matt Smith attached. Shooting began in Morocco in February 2020 and was completed in September of that year. The film was shown at a Gala opening at the 2021 Toronto Film Festival and will be shown at the Tribeca Festival in 2022 prior to its US release with Focus and Roadside. [36] Beautiful Animals, to be set in Greece, is currently in development with Anonymous Content and Endeavour and The Glass Kingdom has been acquired by Apple for development as a limited series. "The Ballad of a Small Player" is also currently in development with Curzon.

In June 2020 it was announced by both Variety and The Hollywood Reporter that Osborne will script and co-produce the film adaptation of Jon Swain's 1997 Vietnam war memoir River of Time in conjunction with Indochina Productions. His script "Solstice" is currently in development, to be shot in Mongolia.

A novel On Java Road , set in Hong Kong, appeared with Random House in August 2022 to enthusiastic reviews on both sides of the Atlantic. It was named as a recommended book by Molly Young in the New York Times. A collection of short stories, Burning Angel, appeared a year later in 2023 and was selected as a New Statesman "Book of the Year 2023." "On Java Road" is currently being produced a feature film with Anonymous Content.

Bibliography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kevin J. Anderson</span> American science fiction author (born 1962)

Kevin James Anderson is an American science fiction author. He has written spin-off novels for Star Wars, StarCraft, Titan A.E. and The X-Files, and with Brian Herbert is the co-author of the Dune prequel series. His original works include the Saga of Seven Suns series and the Nebula Award–nominated Assemblers of Infinity. He has also written several comic books, including the Dark Horse Star Wars series Tales of the Jedi written in collaboration with Tom Veitch, Dark Horse Predator titles, and The X-Files titles for Topps. Some of Anderson's superhero novels include Enemies & Allies, about the first meeting of Batman and Superman, and The Last Days of Krypton, telling the story of how Superman's planet Krypton came to be destroyed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daniel Handler</span> American writer

Daniel Handler is an American author, musician, screenwriter, television writer, and television producer. He is best known for his children's book series A Series of Unfortunate Events and All the Wrong Questions, published under the pen name Lemony Snicket. The former was adapted into a film in 2004 as well as a Netflix series from 2017 to 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Helen Oyeyemi</span> British novelist and playwright

Helen Oyeyemi FRSL is a British novelist and writer of short stories.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Victor LaValle</span> American writer

Victor LaValle is an American author. He is the author of a short-story collection, Slapboxing with Jesus, and five novels, The Ecstatic,Big Machine,The Devil in Silver,The Changeling, and Lone Women. His fantasy-horror novella The Ballad of Black Tom won the 2016 Shirley Jackson Award for best novella. LaValle writes fiction primarily, though he has also written essays and book reviews for GQ, Essence Magazine, The Fader, and The Washington Post, among other publications.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Magda Szabó</span> Hungarian novelist

Magda Szabó was a Hungarian novelist. Doctor of philology, she also wrote dramas, essays, studies, memoirs, poetry and children's literature. She was a founding member of the Digital Literary Academy, an online digital repository of Hungarian literature. She is the most translated Hungarian author, with publications in 42 countries and over 30 languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ned Vizzini</span> American writer

Edison Price Vizzini was an American writer. He was the author of four books for young adults including It's Kind of a Funny Story, which NPR named #56 of the "100 Best-Ever Teen Novels" and which is the basis of the film of the same name.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lawrence Wright</span> American writer and journalist (born 1947)

Lawrence Wright is an American writer and journalist, who is a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine, and fellow at the Center for Law and Security at the New York University School of Law. Wright is best known as the author of the 2006 nonfiction book Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. Wright is also known for his work with documentarian Alex Gibney who directed film versions of Wright's one man show My Trip to Al-Qaeda and his book Going Clear. His 2020 novel, The End of October, a thriller about a pandemic, was released in April 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, to generally positive reviews.

Owen Philip King is an American author of novels and graphic novels, and a television film producer. He published his first book, We're All in This Together, in 2005 to generally positive reviews, but his first full-length novel, Double Feature, had a less enthusiastic reception. King collaborated with his father, writer Stephen King, in the writing of the women's prison novel, Sleeping Beauties and the graphic novel of the same name.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tod Wodicka</span> American author (born 1976)

Tod Wodicka is an American author who grew up in Queensbury, New York. He has lived in Manchester, England; Prague; Rock City Falls; and Moscow. He currently lives in Berlin, Germany.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lauren Groff</span> American writer

Lauren Groff is an American novelist and short story writer. She has written five novels and two short story collections, including Fates and Furies (2015), Florida (2018), and Matrix (2022).

<i>The Hunger Games</i> Young adult book series by Suzanne Collins

The Hunger Games is a series of young adult dystopian novels written by American author Suzanne Collins. The first three novels are part of a trilogy following teenage protagonist Katniss Everdeen, and the fourth book is a prequel set 64 years before the original.

<i>The Forgiven</i> (novel)

The Forgiven is a best-selling 2012 psychological thriller by Lawrence Osborne, published in the United States and the United Kingdom by Hogarth Press.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">J. T. Ellison</span> American writer

J. T. Ellison is a New York Times bestselling American author. She writes domestic noir and psychological thrillers, the latter starring Nashville Homicide Lt. Taylor Jackson and medical examiner Dr. Samantha Owens. She also pens the "A Brit in the FBI" series with #1 New York Times bestselling author Catherine Coulter. With over a million books in print, Ellison's work has been published in twenty-eight countries and sixteen languages. She is also the co-host of the Emmy Award-winning television series, A Word on Words, which airs on Nashville Public Television. Ellison is also the founder of Two Tales Press, an independent publishing house, and The Wine Vixen, a wine review website. She lives with her husband in Nashville, Tennessee.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Phil Klay</span> American writer (born 1983)

Phil Klay is an American writer. He won the National Book Award for fiction in 2014 for his first book-length publication, a collection of short stories, Redeployment. In 2014 the National Book Foundation named him a 5 under 35 honoree. His 2020 novel, Missionaries, was named as one of Barack Obama’s favorite books of the year as well as one of The Wall Street Journal's Ten Best Books of the Year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elliot Ackerman</span> American author

Elliot Ackerman is an American author and former Marine Corps special operations team leader. He is the New York Times–bestselling author of the novels 2034: A Novel of the Next World War, Red Dress In Black and White, Waiting for Eden, Dark at the Crossing, and Green on Blue, and the upcoming Halcyon: A Novel, as well as the memoirs The Fifth Act: America’s End in Afghanistan and Placesand Names: On War, Revolution, and Returning. His books have received significant critical acclaim, including nominations for the National Book Award, the Andrew Carnegie Medals in both fiction and non-fiction, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. He served as a White House fellow in the Obama administration and is a Marine veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is a contributing writer to The Atlantic and The New York Times. He was awarded the Silver Star, the Bronze Star with Valor, and a Purple Heart during his five deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pierce Brown</span> American science fiction author

Pierce Brown is an American science fiction author who writes the Red Rising series, consisting of Red Rising (2014), Golden Son (2015), Morning Star (2016), Iron Gold (2018), Dark Age (2019), and Light Bringer (2023). He has also written a six-issue prequel comic book series, Red Rising: Sons of Ares, which was published in 2017.

<i>The Ballad of a Small Player</i> Novel by Lawrence Osborne

The Ballad of a Small Player is a 2014 novel by British writer Lawrence Osborne. Set in the gambling casinos of Macau, it follows the fortunes of an English con man who passes himself off as a runaway Lord. Part ghost story, part psychological thriller, it earned Osborne comparisons with Graham Greene and Dostoievsky.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hunters in the Dark</span>

Hunters in the Dark is a 2015 psychological thriller written by Lawrence Osborne and set in Cambodia. Lee Child wrote in the New York Times Book Review that, "If the purpose of a novel is to take you away from the everyday and show you something different, then Osborne is succeeding, and handsomely. “Hunters in the Dark” is a novel of immersion, not suspense, shaped like a quiet dream. The reader can do nothing but float as if in a muddy river, going where it takes him, which will be back to a version of the beginning."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephanie Garber</span> American author

Stephanie Garber is an American author of young adult fiction known for the Caraval series.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wiley Cash</span> American novelist (born 1977)

Wiley Cash is a New York Times best-selling novelist from North Carolina. He is the author of three novels, A Land More Kind Than Home, This Dark Road to Mercy, and The Last Ballad. His work has won numerous awards, including the Southern Book Prize twice, and the Crime Writers' Association's CWA New Blood Dagger and Gold Dagger. He is the brother of comedian Cliff Cash

References

  1. ↑ "Books by Members – Optima (p. 18)" (PDF). Fitzwilliam College. 2013. Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 February 2014. Retrieved 7 February 2014.
  2. ↑ Cumming, Ed (7 February 2016), "Lawrence Osborne interview: how the novelist became the new Graham Greene", The Observer.
  3. ↑ New York Times Search: Lawrence Osborne
  4. ↑ Osborne, Lawrence (18 April 2005). "Letter from New Guinea: Strangers in the Forest", The New Yorker, p. 124.
  5. ↑ "Lawrence Osborne". 8 June 2019.
  6. ↑ Osborne, Lawrence (1 February 1989). Ania Malina. ISBN   9780140113105.
  7. ↑ Osborne, Lawrence (2 June 1992). Paris dreambook: An unconventional guide to the splendor and squalor of the city. ISBN   9780679737759.
  8. ↑ Osborne, Lawrence (1 October 1993). The poisoned embrace: A brief history of sexual pessimism. ISBN   9780679427230.
  9. ↑ Osborne, Lawrence (8 May 2007). American Normal: The Hidden World of Asperger Syndrome. ISBN   9780387218076.
  10. ↑ Osborne, Lawrence (15 March 2004). The Accidental Connoisseur: An Irreverent Journey Through the Wine World. ISBN   9781429935111.
  11. ↑ Osborne, Lawrence (12 June 2007). The Naked Tourist: In Search of Adventure and Beauty in the Age of the Airport Mall. ISBN   9781429934985.
  12. ↑ Osborne, Lawrence (26 May 2009). Bangkok Days: A Sojourn in the Capital of Pleasure. ISBN   9781429957328.
  13. ↑ Osborne, Lawrence (30 October 2011). "Boxer, Godfather, Politician. Can Manny Pacquiao Do Everything?". Thedailybeast.com. Retrieved 29 December 2013.
  14. ↑ Osborne, Lawrence (25 September 2011). "Pedro Almodóvar on the Verge". Thedailybeast.com. Retrieved 29 December 2013.
  15. ↑ Hendra, Tony (28 March 2004). "The Reign of Terroir". The New York Times.
  16. ↑ "100 Notable Books of 2014". The New York Times. 2 December 2014. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 8 September 2020.
  17. ↑ "NPR's Book Concierge: Our Guide To 2014's Great Reads". apps.npr.org. 3 December 2014. Retrieved 8 September 2020.
  18. ↑ French, Paul (14 January 2015). "The Book the China Crowd Missed – Lawrence Osborne's the Ballad of a Small Player". Los Angeles Review of Books.
  19. ↑ "Books of the Year: NS friends and contributors choose their favourite reading of 2014". www.newstatesman.com. Retrieved 8 September 2020.
  20. ↑ Collins, Robert. "The Ballad of a Small Player by Lawrence Osborne". The Times . ISSN   0140-0460 . Retrieved 8 September 2020.
  21. ↑ Akbar, Arifa (26 November 2015). "Christmas 2015: The top 15 books in fiction". The Independent.
  22. ↑ Mukherjee, Neel (6 May 2015). "Hunters in the Dark by Lawrence Osborne review – edgy, gripping and beautifully written". The Guardian.
  23. ↑ Child, Lee (13 January 2016). "'Hunters in the Dark,' by Lawrence Osborne". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 8 September 2020.
  24. ↑ Dahiya, Nishant (16 January 2015). "'Hunters' is a Dark, Elegant Tale of East and West". NPR.
  25. ↑ Sexton, David (7 May 2015). "Hunters in the Dark by Lawrence Osborne - review: Stepping out of the". Evening Standard.
  26. ↑ Kemp, Peter (3 May 2015). "Hunters in the Dark by Lawrence Osborne". The Sunday Times.
  27. ↑ Sethi, Anita (24 May 2015). "Hunters in the Dark by Lawrence Osborne review – expert narrative". The Guardian.
  28. ↑ Kitamura, Katie (5 July 2017). "Affluent Idlers Find a Just Cause in a Refugee Swept Ashore". The New York Times.
  29. ↑ Shriver, Lionel (13 July 2017). "Let's not mince words: Lawrence Osborne's 'Beautiful Animals' is a great book". Washington Post. Retrieved 6 March 2019.
  30. ↑ "The best books of 2018", New Statesman, 14 November 2018.
  31. ↑ "New York Times: 100 Notable Books of 2018", The New York Times, 20 November 2018.
  32. ↑ "NPR's Book Concierge | Our Guide To 2018's Great Reads", NPR, 27 November 2018.
  33. ↑ "Best summer books 2018, as picked by writers – part one", The Guardian, 7 July 2018.
  34. ↑ , New Statesman, 7 October 2020.
  35. ↑ "Macau Festival Chief on Making the Casino Capital into a Major Moviegoing Destination (Q&A) | Hollywood Reporter". www.hollywoodreporter.com. 8 December 2017. Retrieved 8 September 2020.
  36. ↑ "John Michael McDonagh's The Forgiven commences filming". Cineuropa - the best of european cinema. Retrieved 8 September 2020.
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.