Michael Wayne Rosen (born 7 May 1946) is an English children's author, poet, presenter, political columnist, broadcaster, activist, and academic, who is a professor of children's literature in the Department of Educational Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London. He has written over 200 books for children and adults. Select books include We're Going on a Bear Hunt (1989) and Sad Book (2004). He served as Children's Laureate from June 2007 to June 2009. He won the 2023 PEN Pinter Prize, awarded by English PEN, for his "fearless" body of work.[1]
Rosen's mother, Connie (née Isakofsky; 1920–1976), worked as a secretary at the Daily Worker and later as a primary school teacher and training college lecturer. She had attended Central Foundation Girls' School, where she made friends such as Bertha Sokoloff. She met Harold in 1935, when both were aged 15, as they were both members of the Young Communist League. They participated in the Battle of Cable Street together. As a young couple, they settled in Pinner, Middlesex. They left the Communist Party in 1957. Rosen never joined, but his parents' activities influenced his childhood.[5][8]
At around the age of 11, Rosen began attending Harrow Weald County Grammar School.[4] He attended state schools in Pinner and Harrow, as well as Watford Grammar School for Boys.[3] He also spent time as an exchange student at Winchester College in 1964, which he recalls fondly.[9] Having discovered Jonathan Miller, he thought, "Wouldn't it be wonderful to know all about science, and know all about art, and be funny and urbane and all that?"[10] His mother was then working for the BBC. Producing a programme featuring poetry, she persuaded him to write for it and used some of his material.[11] He later said, "I went to Middlesex Hospital Medical School, started on the first part of a medical training, jacked it in and went on to do a degree in English at Oxford University. I then worked for the BBC until they chucked me out and I have been a freelance writer, broadcaster, lecturer, performer ever since—that's to say since 1972. Most of my books have been for children, but that's not how I started out. Sometime around the age of twelve and thirteen I began to get a sense that I liked writing, liked trying out different kinds of writing, I tried writing satirical poems about people I knew."[3]
Career
Rosen in 2009
In 1969, Rosen graduated from Wadham College, Oxford, and became a graduate trainee at the BBC. Among the work that he did while there in the 1970s was presenting a series on BBC Schools television called Walrus (write and learn, read, understand, speak). He was also scriptwriter on the children's reading series Sam on Boffs' Island, but Rosen found working for the corporation frustrating: "Their view of 'educational' was narrow. The machine had decided this was the direction to take. Your own creativity was down the spout."[12]
Despite previously having made no secret of his leftist views when he was originally interviewed for a BBC post, he was asked to go freelance in 1972, though in practice he was sacked despite several departments of the BBC wishing to keep employing him. In common with the China expert and journalist Isabel Hilton, among several others at this time, Rosen had failed the vetting procedures that were then in operation. This longstanding practice was only revealed in 1985, and by the time Rosen requested access to his files, they had been destroyed.[13]
In 1974, Mind Your Own Business, his first book of poetry for children, was published. In due course, Rosen established himself with his collections of humorous verse for children, including Wouldn't You Like to Know, You Tell Me and Quick Let's Get Out of Here. Educationalist Morag Styles has described Rosen as "one of the most significant figures in contemporary children's poetry" and one of the first poets "to draw closely on his own childhood experiences and to 'tell it as it was' in the ordinary language children actually use".[12]
Rosen played a key role in opening up children's access to poetry, both through his own writing and with important anthologies such as Culture Shock. He was one of the first poets to make visits to schools throughout the UK and further afield in Australia, Canada and Singapore.[12] His tours continue to enthuse and engage school children about poetry in the present.[14]
Rosen recording his poem "The Listening Lions" in 2014
Rosen is well established as a broadcaster, presenting a range of documentary features on British radio. He is the presenter of BBC Radio 4's regular magazine programme Word of Mouth, which looks at the English language and the way it is used.[21]
The English Association gave Michael Rosen's Sad Book (2004) an Exceptional Award for the Best Children's Illustrated Books of its year in the 4–11 age range. The book was written by Michael Rosen and illustrated by Quentin Blake. It deals in part with bereavement and followed the publication of Carrying the Elephant: A Memoir of Love and Loss, which was published in November 2002 after the death of his son Eddie (aged 18), who features as a child in much of his earlier poetry.[22] Rosen's This Is Not My Nose: A Memoir of Illness and Recovery (2004) is an account of his ten years with undiagnosed hypothyroidism; a course of drugs in 1981 alleviated the condition.[12]
In 2011, he collaborated with his wife, Emma-Louise Williams, to produce the film Under the Cranes,[23] with Rosen providing the original screenplay (a play for voices called Hackney Streets), which Williams took as a basis with which to direct the film. It premiered at the Rio Cinema in Dalston, London, on 30 April 2011, as part of the East End Film Festival.[24]
Rosen has previously taught children's literature on the MA in education studies at the University of North London and its successor institution, London Metropolitan University.[17][25] He was formerly a visiting professor of children's literature at Birkbeck, University of London,[26] where he taught children's literature and devised an MA in children's literature, which commenced in October 2010. Since September 2014, he has been at Goldsmiths, University of London, as professor of children's literature in the Department of Educational Studies, teaching an MA in children's literature.[27]
He is also a patron of the Shakespeare Schools Festival, a charity that enables schoolchildren across the UK to perform Shakespeare in professional theatres.[28]
In 2017, Rosen published his memoir So They Call You Pisher! (Verso).[30]
In March 2021, Rosen released the book Many Different Kinds of Love: A Story of Life, Death and the NHS, an account of his experience being hospitalised with COVID-19 a year earlier,[31] including his own poem for the 60th anniversary of the NHS, "These are the Hands",[32] being pinned to his bed or wall.
Politics
Education policy
Rosen is a long-standing critic of the standardised model of National Curriculum assessment (SATs) and believes English education should focus more on reading.[33] He has accused English SATs of "distorting and wrecking poetry",[34] and described the grammar taught in primary education as "a package of outdated, rigid, misleading, prescriptive, disputed terms".[35]
In November 2019, along with other Jewish public figures, Rosen signed an open letter supporting Corbyn, describing him as "a beacon of hope in the struggle against emergent far-right nationalism, xenophobia and racism in much of the democratic world" and endorsing him in the 2019 UK general election.[42] In December 2019, along with 42 other leading cultural figures, he signed an open letter endorsing the Labour Party under Corbyn's leadership in the 2019 general election. The letter stated that "Labour's election manifesto under Corbyn's leadership offers a transformative plan that prioritises the needs of people and the planet over private profit and the vested interests of a few".[43][44]
In May 2021, Pete Newbon posted a photoshopped image of Jeremy Corbyn reading We're Going on a Bear Hunt, replacing the text on the book's page with the antisemitic forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Rosen claimed the image and its associated tweet as "loathsome and antisemitic".[45] Newbon later commenced a libel action against Rosen, but died before the proceedings completed.[46][47]
Other
In August 2010, Rosen contributed to an e-book collection of political poems entitled Emergency Verse – Poetry in Defence of the Welfare State, edited by Alan Morrison.[48]
Rosen was appointed the sixth British Children's Laureate in June 2007, succeeding Jacqueline Wilson, and held the honour until June 2009, when he was succeeded by Anthony Browne.[52][53][54] Rosen signed off from the Laureateship with an article in The Guardian,[55] in which he said, "Sometimes when I sit with children when they have the space to talk and write about things, I have the feeling that I am privileged to be the kind of person who is asked to be part of it". In 2007, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Exeter.[56]
In April 2011, Rosen was awarded an honorary doctorate at the Institute of Education, University of London,[63] and in July 2011, an honorary doctorate by the University of the West of England.[64] Rosen was selected to be the guest director of the 2013 Brighton Festival.[65]
In 2021, Rosen received the annual J.M. Barrie Lifetime Achievement Award from the charity Action for Children's Arts, "in recognition of his tremendous work championing the arts for children as well as his achievements as a performer and author."[66]
In 2022, Rosen was awarded an honorary fellowship of the Royal College of Nursing by an exceptional and unanimous vote of the RCN Council during the organisation's annual congress; with RCN President Dr Denise Chaffer citing Rosen's lived experience, patient advocacy, and ongoing COVID-19 public awareness work as contributory factors.[67]
In 2023, Rosen was winner of the PEN Pinter Prize, awarded by English PEN to for writers of "outstanding literary merit" who take an "unflinching" look at the world.[68] The judges – Ruth Borthwick (chair), Raymond Antrobus, and Amber Massie-Blomfield – praised Rosen's "ability to address the most serious matters of life in a spirit of joy, humour and hope. Fearless in holding power to account."[69][70][71] Announced at the award ceremony on 11 October, Rosen's choice of "international writer of courage" with whom to share the award was Uyghur professor Rahile Dawut.[72]
Personal life
Rosen has been married three times and has five children and two step-children.[73] His second son Eddie (1980–1999) died at the age of 18 from meningococcal septicaemia, and his death was the inspiration for Rosen's 2004 work Sad Book.[22] Rosen lives in North London[74] with his third wife, Emma-Louise Williams, and their two children.[75][76]
Rosen performs his poetry for children in videos uploaded to his YouTube channel. In March 2021, his channel had 98 million video views.[77] As of July 2024, his channel had 787,000 subscribers and 142 million video views.[78]
In March 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Rosen almost died and was admitted to hospital with suspected COVID-19.[79] He was moved into the ICU and back to a ward, before again being moved back to ICU. He left the ICU after 47 days.[80][81] He was moved to a ward at Whittington Hospital and returned home in June.[82][83][84] In 2021, Rosen reported experiencing symptoms of long COVID, including having lost most of the sight in his left eye and much of the hearing in his left ear, and experienced numbness in his toes.[85]
Select bibliography
—— (1989). We're Going on a Bear Hunt. Walker Books.
—— (2021). Many Different Kinds of Love: A Story of Life, Death and the NHS. Ebury Press.
Related Research Articles
Harold Pinter was a British playwright, screenwriter, director and actor. A Nobel Prize winner, Pinter was one of the most influential modern British dramatists with a writing career that spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party (1957), The Homecoming (1964) and Betrayal (1978), each of which he adapted for the screen. His screenplay adaptations of others' works include The Servant (1963), The Go-Between (1971), The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), The Trial (1993) and Sleuth (2007). He also directed or acted in radio, stage, television and film productions of his own and others' works.
Lady Antonia Margaret Caroline Fraser, is a British author of history, novels, biographies and detective fiction. She is the widow of the 2005 Nobel Laureate in Literature, Harold Pinter (1930–2008), and prior to his death was also known as Lady Antonia Pinter.
Sir Athelstan Joseph Michael Eavis is an English dairy farmer and the co-creator of the Glastonbury Festival, which takes place at his farm in Pilton, Somerset.
Benjamin Obadiah Iqbal Zephaniah was a British writer, dub poet, actor, musician and professor of poetry and creative writing. He was included in The Times list of Britain's top 50 post-war writers in 2008. In his work, Zephaniah drew on his lived experiences of incarceration, racism and his Jamaican heritage.
Jeremy Bernard Corbyn is a British politician who has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Islington North since 1983. An independent, Corbyn was a member of the Labour Party from 1965 until his expulsion in 2024, and is a member of the Socialist Campaign Group parliamentary caucus. He served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party from 2015 to 2020. Corbyn identifies ideologically as a socialist on the political left.
Jason Isaacs is an English actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Colonel William Tavington in The Patriot (2000), Michael D. Steele in Black Hawk Down (2001), Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter franchise series (2002–2011), Captain Hook in Peter Pan (2003), James Wolfe in Battle of the Brave (2004), Antonio Pérez in The Escorial Conspiracy (2007), Georgy Zhukov in The Death of Stalin (2017) and John Godfrey in Operation Mincemeat (2021).
Margaret Eve Hodge, Baroness Hodge of Barking,, is a British politician and life peer, who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Barking from 1994 to 2024. A member of the Labour Party, she was previously Leader of Islington London Borough Council from 1982 to 1992. She has held a number of ministerial roles and served as chair of the Public Accounts Committee from 2010 to 2015.
Alan Michael Sugar, Baron Sugar is a British business magnate, media personality, author, politician, and political adviser.
Jonathan Saul Freedland is a British journalist who writes a weekly column for The Guardian and used to write for the Jewish Chronicle until, along with Hadley Freeman, David Aaronovitch, David Baddiel and others, he resigned dramatically in September 2024. Freedman also presents BBC Radio 4's contemporary history series The Long View. Freedland also writes thrillers, mainly under the pseudonym Sam Bourne, and has written a play, Jews. In Their Own Words, performed in 2022 at the Royal Court Theatre, London.
Lemn Sissay FRSL is a British author and broadcaster. He was the official poet of the 2012 London Olympics, was chancellor of the University of Manchester from 2015 until 2022, and joined the Foundling Museum's board of trustees two years later, having previously been appointed one of the museum's fellows. He was awarded the 2019 PEN Pinter Prize. He has written a number of books and plays.
Malorie Blackman is a British writer who held the position of Children's Laureate from 2013 to 2015. She primarily writes literature and television drama for children and young adults. She has used science fiction to explore social and ethical issues, for example, her Noughts and Crosses series uses the setting of a fictional alternative Britain to explore racism. Blackman has been the recipient of many honours for her work, including the 2022 PEN Pinter Prize.
Michael Longley,, is an Irish poet.
John Burnside FRSL FRSE was a Scottish writer. He was one of four poets to have won the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Forward Poetry Prize for one book. In Burnside's case it was for his 2011 collection, Black Cat Bone. In 2023, he won the David Cohen Prize.
Michael Keith Billington is a British author and arts critic. He writes for The Guardian, and was the paper's chief drama critic from 1971 to 2019. Billington is "Britain's longest-serving theatre critic" and the author of biographical and critical studies relating to British theatre and the arts. He is the authorised biographer of the playwright Harold Pinter (1930–2008).
Piers Richard Corbyn is a British weather forecaster, anti-vaccine activist, conspiracy theorist, and former politician. Corbyn was born in Wiltshire and raised in Shropshire wherein he attended Adams' Grammar School. He was awarded a first class BSc degree in physics from Imperial College London in 1968 and a postgraduate MSc in astrophysics from Queen Mary College, University of London, in 1981. Corbyn was a member of the Labour Party and served as a councillor in the London Borough of Southwark from 1986 to 1990. He is the elder brother of former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, leaving Labour in 2003 due to his opposition to the Iraq War.
Thomas William Hiddleston is an English actor. He gained international fame portraying Loki in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), beginning with Thor in 2011 and including the Disney+ series Loki since 2021.
Founded in 1921, English PEN is one of the world's first non-governmental organisations and among the first international bodies advocating for human rights. English PEN was the founding centre of PEN International, a worldwide writers' association with 145 centres in more than 100 countries. The President of English PEN is Margaret Busby, succeeding Philippe Sands in April 2023. The Director is Daniel Gorman. The Chair is Ruth Borthwick.
Harold Pinter and politics concerns the political views, civic engagement, and political activism of British playwright Harold Pinter (1930–2008), the 2005 Nobel Laureate in Literature.
The PEN Pinter Prize and the Pinter International Writer of Courage Award both comprise an annual literary award launched in 2009 by English PEN in honour of the late Nobel Literature Prize-winning playwright Harold Pinter, who had been a Vice President of English PEN and an active member of the .International PEN Writers in Committee (WiPC). The award is given to "a British writer or a writer resident in Britain of outstanding literary merit who, in the words of Pinter’s Nobel speech ['Art, Truth and Politics'], casts an 'unflinching, unswerving' gaze upon the world and shows 'a fierce, intellectual determination … to define the real truth of our lives and our societies'." The Prize is shared with an "International Writer of Courage," defined as "someone who has been persecuted for speaking out about [his or her] beliefs," selected by English PEN's Writers at Risk Committee in consultation with the annual Prize winner, and announced during an award ceremony held at the British Library, on or around 10 October, the anniversary of Pinter's birth.
Raymond Antrobus is a British poet, educator and writer, who has been performing poetry since 2007. In March 2019, he won the Ted Hughes Award for new work in poetry. In May 2019, Antrobus became the first poet to win the Rathbones Folio Prize for his collection The Perseverance, praised by chair of the judges as "an immensely moving book of poetry which uses his deaf experience, bereavement and Jamaican-British heritage to consider the ways we all communicate with each other." Antrobus was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2020.
↑ Under the Cranes (23 November 2012). "Under the Cranes". Underthecranes.blogspot.com. Archived from the original on 29 June 2013. Retrieved 27 November 2012.
↑ "Michael Rosen". Department of English and Humanities, School of Arts, Birkbeck, University of London. Archived from the original on 11 January 2011. Retrieved 28 January 2010.
↑ Jardine, Cassandra (21 June 2007), "As teenagers, my boys read football programmes ...", The Daily Telegraph; and biographical information provided by Michael Rosen on 19 December 2007.
Styles, Morag (July 1988). "Authorgraph No 51 – Michael Rosen". Books for Keeps: The Children's Book Magazine (51). Archived from the original on 12 January 2016. Retrieved 22 January 2016.
Perring, Christian (15 May 2005). "Michael Rosen's Sad Book". Metapsychology. 9 (19). Archived from the original on 13 March 2007. Retrieved 30 June 2007.
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.
