David Mitchell (author)

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This article is about the writer, for other uses, see David Mitchell
David Mitchell at Skylight Books (Los Angeles, CA) reading from Black Swan Green April 27, 2006.
David Mitchell at Skylight Books (Los Angeles, CA) reading from Black Swan Green April 27, 2006.

David Mitchell (born January, 1969) is an English novelist. He has written four novels, two of which were shortlisted for the Booker Prize. The latest, Black Swan Green, was longlisted for the 2006 award.

Contents

[edit] Biography

David Mitchell was born in Southport, Lancashire, in England, raised in Malvern, Worcestershire, and educated at the University of Kent, studying for a degree in English and American Literature followed by an M.A. in Comparative Literature.

He lived for a year in Sicily, then moved to Hiroshima, Japan, where he taught English to technical students for eight years, before returning to England. He currently lives in Japan with his Japanese wife, Keiko, and their two children.

In an essay for Random House, Mitchell wrote:[1]

I knew I wanted to be a writer since I was a kid, but until I came to Japan to live in 1994 I was too easily distracted to do much about it. I would probably have become a writer wherever I lived, but would I have become the same writer if I'd spent the last 6 years in London, or Cape Town, or Moosejaw, on an oil rig or in the circus? This is my answer to myself.

Mitchell's first novel, Ghostwritten (1999), moves around the globe, from Okinawa to Mongolia to pre-Millennial New York City, as nine narrators tell stories that interlock and intersect. The novel won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize (for best work of British literature written by an author under 35) and was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award.

His two subsequent novels, number9dream (2001) and Cloud Atlas (2004), were both shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. In 2003, he was selected as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists. In 2007, Mitchell was listed among Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in The World.[2]

Mitchell's American editor at Random House is novelist David Ebershoff. He lists John Banville, Muriel Spark, Haruki Murakami and Ursula K. Le Guin as his influences.

[edit] Future work

Mitchell's next book will be an historical novel about Dejima, the man-made island in the middle of Nagasaki Harbour that was built to house Dutch traders in the 17th century. Having just finished five months of research in the Netherlands, Mitchell says that the biggest challenge will be what to omit from this complex story. "For over two centuries", he said, "the Dutch were the only white people allowed to see inside Japan". No one was allowed on or off the island except for tradesmen, translators and prostitutes. "Except", he said, "every four years when the head of the trading post made the trek to Edo (modern-day Tokyo) to pay his respects to the Shogun". Mitchell plans to contrast Shogunate Japan with the Napoleonic era in Europe, he said. Of particular interest is the fact that while the Netherlands ceased to exist for a while after Napoleon annexed it, the Dutch flag still flew in Dejima.

[edit] Novels

[edit] Further reading

[edit] References

  1. ^ Bold Type: Essay by David Mitchell
  2. ^ David Mitchell - The TIME 100 - TIME

[edit] External links

  • [1] Interview with Ramona Koval on The Book Show, ABC Radio National, recorded at Wellington New Zealand Post Writers and Readers Week, March 2008
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