Dan Rhodes

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Dan Rhodes is a British author who was born in 1972.

He is probably best known for the novel Timoleon Vieta Come Home, a subversion of the popular Lassie Come Home movie, but first came to prominence with Anthropology, a collection of 101 stories, each consisting of 101 carefully-chosen words.

Following the publication of his second book, Don't Tell Me The Truth About Love, Rhodes's frustration with the publishing industry led him to announce his retirement from writing. However, he has since said: 'I haven't really given up. I'm certainly not making any more grand pronouncements. I was just sick of the business and wanted out. Not just the publishers; everyone around me.'

Rhodes was included on Granta's Best of Young British Novelists list in 2003, to his own bemusement and frustration, partly because of Granta's selection methods ('It's one thing to judge a writer by stuff they've written, but to judge them on stuff they're going to write is lunacy'[1]) but also because some of the others on the list failed to respond to his request to sign a joint statement protesting against the Iraq war: 'We were supposed to be representing Britain at a time when it was particularly embarrassing to be British, even more so than usual. The government was obviously insulting our intelligence, so I had the idea of getting this group of people who had been officially declared a bit clever to ask them to stop. Almost half were up for it. I'd better not name and shame in case there were people whose email was up the creek, but it certainly shortened my reading list.'[2]

In August 2006 his official website announced Rhodes would be publishing a new book, Gold, in March 2007.

He lives in Scotland.

[edit] Trivia

He is widely considered to have written The Little White Car under the pen name of Danuta de Rhodes.

He completed a TESOL course in Tunbridge Wells, while subsisting only on bread rolls and chips.

He completed a masters degree in creative writing at the University of Glamorgan; his collection of short stories, Don't Tell Me The Truth About Love was written at this time.

He has held various jobs including stockroom assistant for Waterstone's, barman in his parents' pub, and a teacher in Ho Chi Minh City. He has also worked on a fruit and vegetable farm.

He is good friends with the writer Jenny Colgan.

He is a big fan of Patrick Hamilton (specifically his trilogy 20,000 Streets Under the Sky) and in 2004 published a long article in The Guardian about him[3].

[edit] Bibliography

Anthropology: And a Hundred Other Stories, 2000 ISBN 1-84195-614-7
Don't Tell Me the Truth About Love, 2001 ISBN 1-84195-613-9
Timoleon Vieta Come Home: A Sentimental Journey, 2003 ISBN 1-84195-481-0
The Little White Car (under the pen name Danuta de Rhodes), 2004 ISBN 1-84195-528-0