Sarah Hall (writer)

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Sarah Hall

Born1974 (age 5051)
Carlisle, Cumbria, England
OccupationNovelist
LanguageEnglish
Alma mater Aberystwyth University
University of St Andrews
Notable works The Electric Michelangelo (2004)
Notable awardsCommonwealth Writers' Prize (2003)

Sarah Hall FRSL (born 1974) is an English novelist and short story writer. [1] Her critically acclaimed second novel, The Electric Michelangelo , was nominated for the 2004 Man Booker Prize. She lives in Cumbria.

Contents

Biography

Hall was born in Carlisle, Cumbria. [2] She obtained a degree in English and Art History from Aberystwyth University before taking an MLitt in Creative Writing at the University of St Andrews, where she briefly taught on the undergraduate Creative Writing programme. She still teaches creative writing, regularly giving courses for the Arvon Foundation. She began her writing career as a poet, publishing poems in various literary magazines.

Her debut novel, Haweswater, is a rural tragedy about the disintegration of a community of Cumbrian hill-farmers due to the building of Haweswater Reservoir. It won the 2003 Commonwealth Writers' Prize (Overall Winner, Best First Book).

Her second novel, The Electric Michelangelo , set in early twentieth-century Morecambe Bay and Coney Island, is the biography of a fictional tattoo artist. The novel was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2004, and she was again nominated for the Commonwealth Writers Prize in 2005. In France, it was shortlisted for the Prix Femina étranger 2004.

Her third novel, The Carhullan Army, won the 2007 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize [3] and the James Tiptree, Jr. Award, and it was shortlisted for the 2008 Arthur C. Clarke Award. In America, the novel was published under the title Daughters of the North.

Her 2009 novel How to Paint a Dead Man was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize.

In 2013, she was included in the Granta list of 20 best young British novelists. [4] In October 2013, she won the BBC National Short Story Award for "Mrs Fox". [5] [6] She won for a second time in 2020 for her story "The Grotesques".

In 2016, Hall was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. [7] In 2024, she was made an Honorary Doctor of Letters by Lancaster University, for outstanding contribution to literature. [8] She is currently Professor of Creative Writing at Manchester University. [9]

All her novels are published by Faber & Faber. Sarah Hall has lived both in the United Kingdom and in North Carolina.

Hall is a patron of Humanists UK. [10]

Awards

YearTitleAwardCategoryResultRef.
2003 Haweswater Betty Trask Prize and Awards Betty Trask AwardWon
Commonwealth Writers' Prize Overall Best First BookWon
2004 The Electric Michelangelo Man Booker Prize Shortlisted
Orange Prize for Fiction Longlisted
2007The Carhullan Army James Tiptree Jr. Award Won
John Llewellyn Rhys Prize Won
2008 Arthur C. Clarke Award Shortlisted
2009 International Dublin Literary Award Longlisted
How to Paint a Dead Man Man Booker Prize Longlisted
2010 Portico Prize FictionWon
2012The Beautiful Indifference: Stories Edge Hill Short Story Prize Won
Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award Shortlisted
Portico Prize FictionWon
2013"Mrs Fox" BBC National Short Story Award Won
2015The Wolf Border James Tait Black Memorial Prize FictionShortlisted
2017Madame Zero: 9 StoriesEast Anglian Book AwardsFictionWon
2018 Edge Hill Short Story Prize Shortlisted
2021Burntcoat National Book Critics Circle Award Fiction Finalist
2023 International Dublin Literary Award Longlisted

Bibliography

Novels

Short story collections

As contributor or editor

References

  1. "Sarah Hall". Contemporarywriters.com. British Council. 23 November 2011. Archived from the original on 7 June 2011. Retrieved 2 December 2011.
  2. Wilson, N. (22 September 2004). "Booker prize". Cumberland News. Archived from the original on 3 October 2013. Retrieved 2 December 2011.
  3. Hall, Sarah (1 December 2007). "Survivor's tale". The Guardian . Retrieved 14 October 2022. Hall discusses the influence of Z for Zachariah by Robert C. O'Brien.
  4. "Archive Access". Granta.
  5. Bury, Liz (8 October 2013). "Sarah Hall's tale of woman who turns into a fox wins BBC short story award". The Guardian. Retrieved 20 October 2013.
  6. "Sarah Hall wins the BBC National Short Story Award". BBC. 8 October 2013. Retrieved 20 October 2013.
  7. "Sarah Hall". The Royal Society of Literature. Retrieved 26 April 2018.
  8. "Honorary degrees for high flyers". Lancaster University. Retrieved 6 March 2025.
  9. "Search for people | The University of Manchester". personalpages.manchester.ac.uk. Retrieved 7 March 2025.
  10. "Humanists UK announces three new patrons: S I Martin, Sarah Hall, and James Forder". Humanists UK. 28 March 2022. Retrieved 28 March 2022.