Matt Haig Biography

In the author's own words:

I am a writer. The stuff I've written includes novels, screenplays, children's novels and journalism. My novels have now been translated in 29 languages.

My first novel, The Last Family in England (2004) was a UK bestseller. It was an honour when one of my favourite writers, Jeanette Winterson, called it 'among the great animal books.' It was a Daily Mail Book Club selection, and the film rights have been sold to Brad Pitt's production company. The very talented New Zealand film-maker Taika Waititi has written a brilliant screenplay and plans to direct the film.

Since that book I've written The Dead Fathers Club (2006) and The Possession of Mr Cave (2008), which have been translated into ten languages. The last one is still the darkest thing I've ever written, by quite a long way. Again, an excellent screenplay for that has been written by Brock Norman Brock.

The Radleys, won an ALA Alex Award in America, has been shortlisted for the Portico prize and nominated for the Carnegie Medal, and has been translated into 29 languages most recently Lithuania. It won the TV Book Club Summer Read. I have written the screenplay with the help of the (now chopped) UK Film Council, which is being produced into a film by Alfonso Cuaron and BBC Films. It was written as an adult novel, but in addition to the Canongate edition there is a young adult edition available in the UK published by Walker Books.

However, I have written some children's books. My first, Shadow Forest,won the Nestle/Smarties Prize, the Blue Peter Book of the Year Award (2009) and eight regional awards. Both Shadow Forest and it's sequel The Runaway Troll are being re-packaged and re-published for release in the UK in 2013. This will coincide with the launch of the paperback edition of my new kids book, To Be a Cat.

I was born in Sheffield, Yorkshire in 1975. Since then I have lived in Nottinghamshire, Ibiza and London. I studied English and History at Hull University and then did an MA at Leeds. I live in Brighton with the writer Andrea Semple and our children Lucas and Pearl. And in 2009, I won the Yorkshire Young Achievers 'Achievement in the Arts' Award.

From the author's website, 2018

Matt Haig's website

This bio was last updated on 01/23/2018. We try to keep BookBrowse's biographies both up to date and accurate, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's a tough task. So, please help us - if the information about this author is out of date or inaccurate, and you know of a more complete source, please let us know. Authors and publishers: If you wish to make changes to a bio, send the complete biography as you would like it displayed so that we can replace the old with the new.