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Robert E. Swindells (born 20 March 1939) is an English author of children's and young adult fiction.
For the young-adult novel Stone Cold (Heinemann, 1993), which dealt with homelessness, he won the annual Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognizing the year's outstanding children's book by a British subject. [1]
Born in Bradford, Yorkshire, Swindells worked for a newspaper after leaving school aged 15. [2] He served with the Royal Air Force and held various jobs before training as a Primary school teacher. While in training he wrote his first novel, When Darkness Comes, which was published by Brockhampton Press of Stenhousemuir in 1973. [3] He combined writing with teaching until 1980 when he took up writing full-time. He was still writing as of his 71st birthday (20 March 2010).
He first won the Red House Children's Book Award with Brother in the Land (1984), a novel set in a post-apocalyptic world. Swindells was a supporter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and is quoted as saying that the work "... came out of my own anger and frustration ... you can't kill selectively with nuclear weapons, you wipe out millions of people ...". He won three more Red House awards for Room (13), Nightmare Stairs (Short novel, 1998) and Blitzed (Younger readers, 2003).
In a 2010 by-election and in the 2011 local elections, Swindells stood as the Green Party of England and Wales candidate for the Worth Valley ward of Bradford City Council. In 2010, he took 11% of the vote, putting him in third place. [4]
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Swindells has won several annual book awards.
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