Alexander Stuart (writer)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Alexander Stuart is a British-born, Los Angeles-based novelist and screenwriter, whose books have been translated into eight languages and published in the US, Britain, Europe, Israel and throughout the world.
His most controversial novel, The War Zone, about a family torn apart by incest, was turned into a film by Oscar-nominated actor/director Tim Roth in 1999. At the time of the book's initial publication in 1989, it was stripped of the Whitbread Best Novel Award amid controversy among the panel of three judges.
Tim Roth and Alexander Stuart
Stuart's books include The War Zone, Tribes, Life On Mars (which inspired the British television documentary, The End of America), Five And A Half Times Three (written with Ann Totterdell, about the death from cancer of their five-and-a-half-year-old son, Joe Buffalo Stuart), and the children's books, Joe, Jo-Jo And The Monkey Masks and Henry And The Sea (written with Joe Buffalo Stuart).
A major influence on Stuart's life and work, particularly The War Zone, was the loss from cancer of his first son at the age of five and a half in 1989:
"Once my son was diagnosed with cancer, I had this huge amount of pain and anger about how this could happen to the child I loved so much. And I definitely directed that into The War Zone. I wrote it differently than anything I've written. I would rush back to the house while he was in chemotherapy and just write for two hours. I almost felt as if I were channeling it."
In addition to scripting Roth's film of The War Zone, Stuart also served as executive producer of Nicolas Roeg's Insignificance, based on Terry Johnson's play, which brought together a fictionalized Marilyn Monroe, Albert Einstein, Joe DiMaggio and Senator Joe McCarthy, on a single night in New York.
Before moving to the United States, Stuart lived in London and Brighton, England. During the 1990s, he moved to Miami Beach, where he taught screenwriting at the University of Miami. In 1997, he was commissioned by the Miami Art Museum to create an artwork, Filmloop/Fragments, to accompany a sculpture installation by the Polish artist, Magdalena Abakanowicz. He currently lives in Los Angeles, with his wife, Charong chow, and young son. On September 22 2006, Stuart was sworn in as an American citizen.
