Gareth Russell is a British author, best known for writing the novel Popular. Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, he attended Down High Grammar School from the age of eleven to eighteen. He later studied Modern History at the University of Oxford, attending St. Peter's College from 2005 to 2008. After that, he completed a postgraduate degree in medieval history at Queen's University, Belfast.
Russell is the author of a series of plays about the French Revolution, including The Audacity of Ideas and All Those Who Suffered.[1] His other plays include Appeasement, Magdalene and The Mysterious Case of Elizabeth Barton. In July 2011, his first novel Popular was published in the UK and Ireland by Penguin, as the first in a new series of novels following the lives of a group of privileged Belfast teenagers. It has subsequently been published in Canada, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa. It will be published in Germany in 2012. It has also since been adapted for the stage.[2]
Russell is the son of former football manager Ian Russell and he currently lives in Belfast.