Author Biography | Interview | Books by this Author | Readalikes
Peter Ho Davies was born in 1966 to Welsh and Chinese parents. He has degrees
in Physics and English, and was awarded an MA in Creative Writing from Boston
University. He has worked in Malaysia, Singapore, and the USA, and was also, for
a time, UK business manager for Varsity.
His work has appeared in a variety of magazines and newspapers, and his short
fiction is widely anthologized, including selections for Prize Stories: The O.
Henry Awards 1998 and Best American Short Stories 1995, 1996 and 2001. His own
first published collection of short stories was The Ugliest House in the World
(1998), which contains tales set in Malaysia, South Africa and Patagonia. This
collection won the PEN/Macmillan Silver Pen Award and the Mail on Sunday/John
Llewellyn Rhys Prize. His second collection, Equal Love, was published in 2000.
Peter Ho Davies lives in the United States and directs the MFA Program in
Creative Writing at the University of Michigan. He is a recipient of fellowships
from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Fine Arts Work Center in
Provincetown. In 2003, he was named by Granta magazine as one of twenty 'Best of
Young British Novelists'.
Davies is married and has one son.
About This Biography
This biography was last updated on 05/28/2016. We try to keep BookBrowse's biographies both up to date and accurate, but with over 2500 lives to keep track of it's inevitable that some won't be as current or as complete as we would like. So, please help us - if the information about a particular author is out of date, inaccurate or simply very short, and you know of a more complete source, please let us know. Authors and those connected with authors:
If you wish to make changes to your bio, send your complete biography as you would like it displayed so that we can replace the old with the new.
Talking with Peter Ho Davies, author of The Welsh Girl
Q: What inspired you to write The Welsh Girl?
A: One of my earliest memories of my grandmother’s house in North Wales is
playing with the small brass trinkets – a letter opener in the shape of a sword,
a tobacco tin I took for a treasure chest – shining on her mantelpiece. She told
me they were made from old shell casings by German prisoners of war held in
camps in Snowdonia. I was fascinated by how these objects had passed from their
hands to my grandmother’s and then to mine. It might have been the first time I
felt history brush up against my own young life.
Q: Your father is Welsh, but your mother is Chinese, and you grew up in
England and now live in the United States. How Welsh do you feel?
A: I wasn’t sure at the outset that I was Welsh enough – whatever that means
– to write the book (I’ve had the same anxiety when writing about Chinese
subjects, too, so it’s a double bind). In the end, though, I think I wrote it
not despite that doubt, but because of it. The writing of the book is an effort
to answer the question, How Welsh am I? Or actually to enlarge that question a
little, to ...
In addition to co-authoring The Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society with her aunt Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows is the author of the children’s series Ivy and Bean, as well as The Magic Half. (more)
If you enjoyed:
The Welsh Girl
Try:
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
by Annie Barrows
A.L. Kennedy was born in Dundee in 1965. She is the author of 14 books: 6 novels, 5 short story collections, and 3 works of non-fiction. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a Fellow of the Royal Society of ... (more)
If you enjoyed:
The Welsh Girl
Try:
Day
by A.L. Kennedy
We recommend 16 similar authors
Darling Days
by iO Tillett Wright
A devastatingly powerful memoir of one young woman's extraordinary coming of age.
The Tea Planter's Wife
by Dinah Jefferies
An utterly engrossing, compulsive page-turner set in 1920s Ceylon.
Raw, emotionally intelligent and unflinchingly honest--a triumph.
About the book
Blood at the Root
"A gripping, timely, and important examination of American racism."
- PW Starred Review
Visitors can view some of BookBrowse for free. Full access is for members only.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends books that we believe to be best in class. Books that will whisk you to faraway places and times, that will expand your mind and challenge you -- the kinds of books you just can't wait to tell your friends about.
Subscribe to receive some of our best reviews, "beyond the book" articles, book club info & giveaways by email.
