Roger King | |
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| Born | 14 March 1947 Forty Hill in the London Borough of Enfield, UK |
| Occupation | Novelist, filmmaker, economist |
| Nationality | British and American |
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| rogerking | |
Roger Frank Graham King (born 14 March 1947) is an English novelist and filmmaker.
King was born on 14 March 1947 in Forty Hill in the London Borough of Enfield. He earned a bachelor's degree in food science from the University of Nottingham, a M.S. from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and a PhD in Agricultural Economics from the University of Reading in England, where he was on the faculty until resigning to devote more time to fiction. [1] He was subsequently invited to teach at Ahmadu Bello University in Nigeria.
While writing his early novels King continued travelling and working in Africa and Asia, usually for UN agencies. In 1990, he was invited to teach creative writing, literature, and screenwriting at Eastern Washington University, and moved to the United States.
In 1991, after completing his third novel, King developed ME Disease. [1] During irregular remissions, he was on the creative writing and English literature faculty at San Francisco State University, the University of New Mexico, and the Warren Wilson MFA Program.
Since 1997 King has lived and written in Leverett, Massachusetts, a small village outside of Amherst. He has received multiple fellowships from Yaddo, The MacDowell Colony, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.
His first novel, Horizontal Hotel, was published by André Deutsch in 1983. The Irish Times called the book "a searing invocation of modern Africa," [2] and The Guardian wrote, "All is trembling on the edge of breakdown, yet the writing stays cool; the effect is of a quiet delirium." [3] WorldCat shows it is held in 54 libraries. [4]
Written on a Stranger's Map followed in 1987 and drew on King's experiences working in Sierra Leone and Liberia. The Guardian described it as a novel of "luminous clarity." [5] WorldCat shows it is held in 59 libraries. [6]
His third novel, Sea Level, was published in 1992 and was slightly more successful: WorldCat shows it in 83 libraries [7] According to The New York Times, "this beautifully worked novel is told from the vantage point of a man who has reached the end of everything: his married life; his affair with a shrewd erotic mistress; his career, even the ends of the earth". [8]
A fourth book, A Girl From Zanzibar was published in 2002. It won the BABRA (now NCBR) Award for "The Best Novel of the Year." The New York Times called A Girl From Zanzibar a "brilliantly prescient novel", [9] and O Magazine said "a steady beat of danger pursues the adventurous, money-hungry heroine of Roger King’s intriguing new novel…King is no slouch at weaving global politics into his narrative, from shifty banking to arms dealing, but at heart Marcella’s quest is a traditional but profound one. The pathos of this well-told, frequently surprising story is how hard it is for this beautiful, intelligent 'woman from everywhere, belonging nowhere' to fulfill such fundamental need". [10] According to WorldCat, it is in 162 libraries. [11]
King's newly completed book, an autobiographical novel, titled Love and Fatigue in America, was published in March 2012. According to WorldCat, it is in 168 libraries. [12] Publishers Weekly gave it a starred review, [13] and it has elicited favourable response from others with M.E. [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] A more recent review is positive as well. [19]
King was executive producer of the feature documentary Still, The Children Are Here, made in collaboration with Mira Nair and Dinaz Stafford. The film is set in the remote village of Sadholpara in Northeastern India. He has also written a screenplay adaptation of A Girl From Zanzibar, which is in development. His screenplay of Written on a Stranger's Map won the BBC/Writer's Guild award for best first screenplay. [1]
King has worked in twenty African and Asian countries, primarily for United Nations' agencies. Projects ranged from rice farming and policy in Liberia, resettling ex-guerillas in Zimbabwe, jute in Bangladesh, facilitating popular participation projects, adult literacy, women's savings and microcredit in Sierra Leone, Liberia, The Gambia and Zambia, large scale regional economic development in Pakistan, to evaluating the decollectivisation of agriculture in Inner Mongolia, China. [1] While implementing these projects, King was based in London, England, and Rome, Italy.
Recent international work has included alternative Global Future Scenarios for the World Bank Strategy Department and Afghanistan reconciliation and reconstruction proposals for UN agencies. In 2010–2011 he was the recipient of a Copeland Fellowship in International Development at Amherst College. [20]
Robert Anson Heinlein was an American science fiction author, aeronautical engineer, and naval officer. Sometimes called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was among the first to emphasize scientific accuracy in his fiction, and was thus a pioneer of the subgenre of hard science fiction. His published works, both fiction and non-fiction, express admiration for competence and emphasize the value of critical thinking. His plots often posed provocative situations which challenged conventional social mores. His work continues to have an influence on the science-fiction genre, and on modern culture more generally.
Stephen Edwin King is an American author. Widely known for his horror novels, he has been crowned the "King of Horror". He has also explored other genres, among them suspense, crime, science-fiction, fantasy and mystery. Though known primarily for his novels, he has written approximately 200 short stories, most of which have been published in collections.
David Foster Wallace was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and university professor of English and creative writing. Wallace's 1996 novel Infinite Jest was cited by Time magazine as one of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005. His posthumous novel, The Pale King (2011), was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2012. The Los Angeles Times's David Ulin called Wallace "one of the most influential and innovative writers of the last twenty years".
Roger William Corman was an American film director, producer and actor. Known under various monikers such as "The Pope of Pop Cinema", "The Spiritual Godfather of the New Hollywood", and "The King of Cult", he was known as a trailblazer in the world of independent film.
Anjelica Huston is an American actress, director and model known for often portraying eccentric and distinctive characters. She has received multiple accolades, including an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award, as well as nominations for three British Academy Film Awards and six Primetime Emmy Awards. In 2010, she was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Pet Sematary is a 1983 horror novel by American writer Stephen King. The novel was nominated for a World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 1984, and adapted into two films: one in 1989 and another in 2019. In November 2013, PS Publishing released Pet Sematary in a limited 30th-anniversary edition.
John Erskine was an American educator and author, pianist and composer. He was an English professor at Amherst College from 1903 to 1909, followed by Columbia University from 1909 to 1937. He was the first president of the Juilliard School of Music. During his tenure at Columbia University he formulated the General Honors Course—responsible for inspiring the influential Great Books movement. He published over 100 books, novels, criticism, and essays including his most important essay, The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent (1915).
Seven Seas Entertainment is an American publishing company located in Los Angeles, California. It was originally dedicated to the publication of original English-language manga, but now publishes licensed manga and light novels from Japan, as well as select webcomics. The company is headed by Jason DeAngelis, who coined the term "world manga" with the October 2004 launch of the company's website.
Valerie Martin is an American novelist and short story writer.
Kelly Link is an American editor and writer. Mainly known as an author of short stories, she published her first novel The Book of Love in 2024. While some of her fiction falls more clearly within genre categories, many of her stories might be described as slipstream or magic realism: a combination of science fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery, and literary fiction. Among other honors, she has won a Hugo Award, three Nebula Awards, and a World Fantasy Award for her fiction, and she was one of the recipients of the 2018 MacArthur "Genius" Grant.
Holly Black is an American writer and editor best known for her children's and young adult fiction. Her most recent work is the New York Times bestselling young adult Folk of the Air series. She is also well known for The Spiderwick Chronicles, a series of children's fantasy books she created with writer and illustrator Tony DiTerlizzi, and her debut trilogy of young adult novels officially called the Modern Faerie Tales. Black has won a Lodestar Award, a Nebula Award, and a Newbery Honor.
Chris A. Bohjalian is an American novelist and the author of over twenty novels, including Midwives (1997), The Sandcastle Girls (2012), The Guest Room (2016), and The Flight Attendant (2018). Bohjalian's work has been published in over thirty languages, and three of his novels have been adapted into films. Bohjalian's The Flight Attendant has been adapted for a television drama starring Kaley Cuoco.
Alexander Chee is an American fiction writer, poet, journalist and reviewer.
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.
William Gregory Magnussen is an American actor. He has been featured in the films Into the Woods (2014), Bridge of Spies (2015), Birth of the Dragon (2016), Game Night (2018), and Aladdin (2019), and has had supporting television roles in Get Shorty (2017) and Maniac (2018). In 2021, Magnussen starred in the sci-fi series Made for Love on HBO Max and appeared in the films The Many Saints of Newark and No Time to Die. In 2023, he starred as Rey "The King" Kingston in Spy Kids: Armageddon.
Rebecca Brown is an American novelist, essayist, playwright, artist, and professor. She was the first writer in residence at Richard Hugo House, co-founder of the Jack Straw Writers Program, and served as the creative director of literature at Centrum in Port Townsend, Washington from 2005 to 2009. Brown's best-known work is her novel The Gifts of the Body, which won a Lambda Literary Award in 1994. Rebecca Brown is an Emeritus faculty member in the MFA in Creative Writing Program at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont and is also a multi-media artist whose work has been displayed in galleries such as the Frye Art Museum.
Aatish Ali Taseer is a British-American writer and journalist.
Doctor Sleep is a 2013 horror novel by American writer Stephen King and the sequel to his 1977 novel The Shining. The book reached the first position on The New York Times Best Seller list for print, ebook, and hardcover fiction. Doctor Sleep won the 2013 Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel.
Danai Jekesai Gurira is a Zimbabwean-American actress, playwright, and activist. She is best known for her starring roles as Michonne on the AMC horror drama series The Walking Dead and The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live (2024), and as Okoye in the Marvel Cinematic Universe superhero films, including Black Panther (2018) and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022). Gurira is the writer of the Broadway play Eclipsed, for which she was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Play.
Wayétu Moore is a Liberian-American author and social entrepreneur. Her debut novel, She Would Be King, was published by Graywolf Press in September 2018, and was named a best book of 2018 by Publishers Weekly, Booklist, Entertainment Weekly & BuzzFeed. The novel was positively reviewed by Time Magazine, The New York Times, and The New Yorker. Moore has published work in The New York Times, The Paris Review, Guernica Magazine, The Atlantic, and other journals. She was awarded a Lannan Literary Fellowship for fiction in 2019. Moore's memoir, The Dragons, The Giant, The Women, was named a 2020 New York Times Notable Book, a Time Magazine 10 Best Nonfiction Books of 2020, and a Publishers Weekly Top 5 Nonfiction Books of 2020. In 2011, Moore founded a publishing house and nonprofit organization, One Moore Book, which publishes and distributes books intended for children in countries underrepresented in literature.
Media related to Roger King (novelist) at Wikimedia Commons
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