William Somerset Maugham was an English writer, known for his plays, novels and short stories. Born in Paris, where he spent his first ten years, Maugham was schooled in England and went to a German university. He became a medical student in London and qualified as a physician in 1897. He never practised medicine, and became a full-time writer. His first novel, Liza of Lambeth (1897), a study of life in the slums, attracted attention, but it was as a playwright that he first achieved national celebrity. By 1908 he had four plays running at once in the West End of London. He wrote his 32nd and last play in 1933, after which he abandoned the theatre and concentrated on novels and short stories.
The Somerset Maugham Award is a British literary prize given each year by the Society of Authors. Set up by William Somerset Maugham in 1947 the awards enable young writers to enrich their work by gaining experience in foreign countries. The awards go to writers under the age of 30 with works published in the year before the award; the work can be either non-fiction, fiction or poetry.
Francis Henry King was a British novelist and short story writer. He worked for the British Council for 15 years, with positions in Europe and Japan. For 25 years, he was a chief book reviewer for the Sunday Telegraph, and for 10 years its theatre critic.
Adam Thirlwell is a British novelist. His work has been translated into thirty languages. He has twice been named as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists. In 2015 he received the E.M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is an advisory editor of The Paris Review.
Sarah Ann Waters is a Welsh novelist. She is best known for her novels set in Victorian society and featuring lesbian protagonists, such as Tipping the Velvet and Fingersmith.
Giles Foden is an English author, best known for his novel The Last King of Scotland (1998).
Nicholas Laird is a Northern Irish novelist and poet.
Jon McGregor is a British novelist and short story writer. In 2002, his first novel was longlisted for the Booker Prize, making him then the youngest-ever contender. His second and fourth novels were longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2006 and 2017 respectively. In 2012, his third novel, Even the Dogs, was awarded the International Dublin Literary Award. The New York Times has labelled him a "wicked British writer".
Peter Benson is the author of novels, plays, short stories and poetry, and has been described by the London Evening Standard as having "one of the most distinctive voices in modern British fiction".
Chris Cleave is a British writer and journalist.
Gwendoline Riley is an English writer.
Lesley Glaister is a British novelist, poet and playwright. She has written 15 novels, Blasted Things (2020) being the most recent, one play and numerous short stories and radio plays. She is a lecturer in creative writing at the University of St Andrews, and is a regular contributor of book reviews to The Spectator and The Times. She is married to poet Andrew Greig.
Justin Hill is an English novelist.
Peter Ackroyd is an English biographer, novelist and critic with a specialist interest in the history and culture of London. For his novels about English history and culture and his biographies of, among others, William Blake, Charles Dickens, T. S. Eliot, Charlie Chaplin and Sir Thomas More, he won the Somerset Maugham Award and two Whitbread Awards. He is noted for the volume of work he has produced, the range of styles therein, his skill at assuming different voices, and the depth of his research.
Nadifa Mohamed is a Somali-British novelist. She featured on Granta magazine's list "Best of Young British Novelists" in 2013, and in 2014 on the Africa39 list of writers aged under 40 with potential and talent to define future trends in African literature. Her 2021 novel, The Fortune Men, was shortlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize, making her the first British Somali novelist to get this honour. She has also written short stories, essays, memoirs and articles in outlets including The Guardian, and contributed poetry to the anthology New Daughters of Africa. Mohamed was also a lecturer in Creative Writing in the Department of English at Royal Holloway, University of London until 2021. She will be Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University in Spring 2022.
Sweet Tooth is a novel by the English writer Ian McEwan, published on 21 August 2012. It deals with the experiences of its protagonist, Serena Frome, during the early 1970s. After graduating from Cambridge she is recruited by MI5, and becomes involved in a covert programme to combat communism by infiltrating the intellectual world. When she becomes romantically involved with her mark, complications ensue.
Even the Dogs is British author Jon McGregor's third novel. First published in 2010, the novel focuses on drug addiction, alcoholism, homelessness, and dereliction. The Irish Times literary critic Eileen Battersby called it a "magnificent" novel. In 2012, Even the Dogs was awarded the International Dublin Literary Award, one of the world's richest literary prizes.
Pobby and Dingan is a novella by English author Ben Rice, which first appeared in issue 70 of Granta in Summer 2000 and published in book form later that year. It was joint winner of the 2001 Somerset Maugham Award and shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. It has been made into the 2006 film Opal Dream, a 2010 play for children by Catherine Wheels Theatre Company and a 2012 play The Mysterious Vanishment Of Pobby & Dingan for Bristol theatre company Travelling Light.
So Many Ways to Begin is British author Jon McGregor's second novel, first published in 2006. It was longlisted for the 2006 Booker Prize.
Zoe Pilger is an English author and art critic. Her first novel, Eat My Heart Out, won a Betty Trask Award and a Somerset Maugham Award.
