Simon Mawer
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Simon Mawer (/mɔːr/ MOR; born 1948[1]) is a British author who lives in Italy.
Life and work[edit]
Born in England and educated at Millfield School in Somerset and at Brasenose College, Oxford, Mawer took a degree in Zoology and has worked as a biology teacher for most of his life. He published his first novel, Chimera, (Hamish Hamilton, 1989) at the comparatively late age of forty-one. It won the McKitterick Prize for a first novel by an author over the age of forty. Mendel's Dwarf (1997) followed three works of modest success and established him as a writer of note on both sides of the Atlantic.[citation needed] The New York Times described it as a "thematically ambitious and witty novel".[2] Uzo optioned film rights, and then later Barbra Streisand optioned them.
The novels The Gospel of Judas (2000) and The Fall (2003) came next, followed by Swimming to Ithaca (2006), a novel partially inspired by his childhood on the island of Cyprus. He then published another non-fiction book, Gregor Mendel: Planting the Seeds of Genetics (2006), published in conjunction with the Field Museum of Chicago as a companion volume to the museum's concurrent exhibition of the same name.
In 2009 he published The Glass Room, a novel about a modernist villa built in a Czech city. His 2012 book The Girl Who Fell from the Sky was received positively on both sides of the Atlantic, described as "a professionally crafted and engaging story" and a "skillfully and intelligently executed thriller".[3] In 2015 he published Tightrope, a follow-on to The Girl Who Fell from the Sky. Tightrope has been described as "...skillful and evocative examination of a mind under stress. Most recently, he wrote Prague Spring (2018) about Brits living in and travelling through Czechoslovakia during both the Prague Spring and subsequent Warsaw Pact invasion.
Personal life[edit]
Mawer has lived in Rome since 1977, teaching biology at St. George's British International School in Rome. He is married and has two children.[1]
Bibliography[edit]
- Chimera (1989)
- A Place in Italy (1992) (Nonfiction)
- The Bitter Cross (1992)
- A Jealous God (1996)
- Mendel's Dwarf (1997)
- The Gospel of Judas (2000)
- The Fall (2003)
- Swimming to Ithaca (2006)
- Gregor Mendel: Planting the Seeds of Genetics (2006) (Nonfiction)
- The Glass Room (2009)
- The Girl Who Fell from the Sky, published in the United States by Other Press as Trapeze (2012)
- Tightrope (2015)
- Prague Spring (2018)
- Ancestry (2022)
Awards and honors[edit]
- 1990 McKitterick Prize for first novels, Chimera
- 2003 Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature, The Fall
- 2003 Man Booker Prize, longlist, The Fall
- 2009 Man Booker Prize, shortlist, The Glass Room[4]
- 2010 Walter Scott Prize, shortlist, The Glass Room[5]
- 2016 Walter Scott Prize, winner, Tightrope[6]
References[edit]
- ^ a b "The Glass Room: Author Biography". The Man Booker Prize. Archived from the original on 10 June 2012. Retrieved 15 July 2012.
- ^ Prose, Francine (22 March 1998). "Get Out the Chromosomal Map". The New York Times. Retrieved 15 July 2012.
- ^ Smith, Wendy (11 June 2012). "'Trapeze,' by Simon Mawer". The Washington Post. Retrieved 15 July 2012.
- ^ "Man Booker shortlist is announced". BBC News. 8 September 2009. Retrieved 8 September 2009.
- ^ "Booker rivals clash again on Walter Scott prize shortlist", The Guardian, 2 April 2010
- ^ "The winner of the 2016 Walter Scott Prize is announced!". Walter Scott Prize. 18 June 2016. Retrieved 20 June 2016.
External links[edit]
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