Matthew Kneale

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Matthew Kneale (born November 24, 1960) is a British writer, best known for his 2000 novel English Passengers, which won the prestigious Whitbread Book Award and was also shortlisted for the Booker Prize. He studied Modern History at Magdalen College, Oxford, and afterwards spent a year in Japan, when he began writing. He now lives in Italy.

Kneale is the son of the writers Nigel Kneale and Judith Kerr. His other novels include Whore Banquets, (1987 - winner of the 1988 Somerset Maugham Award, which was also won by his father in 1950), Inside Rose's Kingdom (1989) and Sweet Thames (1992 - winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize). In 2004, he released the short story collection Small Crimes in an Age of Abundance. Whore Banquets was subsequently reissued under a new title as Mr Foreigner.

English Passengers was also shortlisted for Australia's Miles Franklin Award in 2000, making Kneale the first non-Australian author to be shortlisted for the award.