David Almond

David Almond
David Almond in 2008
Born	(1951-05-15) 15 May 1951 (age 73) Thirlmere, Felling, Tyne and Wear, England, UK
Occupation	Writer
Nationality	British
Period	1998–present
Genre	Children's novels, speculative fiction
Notable works	Skellig Kit's Wilderness The Fire-Eaters Clay
Notable awards	Carnegie Medal 1998 Hans Christian Andersen Award for Writing 2010
Website
www.davidalmond.com

David Almond (born 15 May 1951) is a British author who has written several novels for children or young adults from 1998, each one to critical acclaim.

He is one of thirty children's writers, and one of three from the U.K., to win the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Award, "the world's most prestigious prize in children's literature".^[1][2] For the 70th anniversary of the British Carnegie Medal in 2007, his debut novel Skellig (1998) was named one of the top ten Medal-winning works, selected by a panel to compose the ballot for a public election of the all-time favourite.^[3] It ranked third in the public vote from that shortlist.^[4]

He married selina gomes

Career

Those stories led directly to his first children's novel, Skellig (1999), set in Newcastle. It won the 1999 Whitbread Award, Children's Book and the Carnegie Medal. It has been published in over thirty languages.^{[citation needed]} And it has become a radio play scripted by Almond; a stage play scripted by Almond, first production at the Young Vic, directed by Trevor Nunn; an opera with libretto by Almond, composed by Tod Machover, first directed by Braham Murray at The Sage in Gateshead; and a film directed by Annabel Jankel, with Tim Roth as Skellig.

In the next seven years, four more novels by Almond made the Carnegie Medal shortlist of five to eight books.^[5] Since Skellig his novels, stories, and plays have also brought international success and widespread critical acclaim. They are Kit's Wilderness (1999), Heaven Eyes (2000), Secret Heart (2001), The Fire Eaters (2003), Clay (2005), Jackdaw Summer (2009), and My Name is Mina (2010), a prequel to Skellig. He collaborates with leading artists and illustrators, including Polly Dunbar (My Dad's a Birdman and The Boy Who Climbed Into the Moon); Stephen Lambert (Kate, the Cat and the Moon; and Dave McKean (The Savage, Slog's Dad and the forthcoming Mouse Bird Snake Wolf). His plays include Wild Girl, Wild Boy, My Dad's a Birdman, Noah & the Fludd and the stage adaptations of Skellig and Heaven Eyes.

Almond's novel The True Tale of the Monster Billy Dean (2011) was published in two editions: Adult (Penguin Viking); and Young Adult (Puffin). 2012 publications include The Boy Who Swam With Piranhas (illustrated by Oliver Jeffers). In 2013, Mouse Bird Snake Wolf (illustrated by Dave McKean) was published.

His works are highly philosophical and thus appeal to children and adults alike. Recurring themes throughout include the complex relationships between apparent opposites (such as life and death, reality and fiction, past and future); forms of education; growing up and adapting to change; the nature of the "self". He has been greatly influenced by the works of the English Romantic poet William Blake.^{[citation needed]}

In November 2008 he was a guest on Private Passions, the biographical music discussion programme on BBC Radio 3.^[6] In November 2012 an edition of BBC Radio 4's Bookclub is dedicated to Skellig. He has written and recorded an essay on the poet, Caedmon, to be broadcast as part of BBC Radio 3's Anglo Saxon Portraits series. His story, Francesca and the Tiger, is published in the new Waterstone's anthology, Red.

His short story "The Knife Sharpener" appeared in The Sunday Times on 25 January 2010^[7] and The Savage was given away free as part of the Liverpool Reads event.^[8]

From 2006-12 he was Visiting Professor in Creative Writing at Nottingham Trent University. In 2012 he became Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University.^[9]

He currently (2013) lives with his family, the sculptor/ceramicist Sara Jane Palmer, and their daughter Freya, in Northumberland, England, about 25 miles from Newcastle, "just beyond the Roman Wall, which for centuries marked the place where civilisation ended and the waste lands began."

On 10 March 2013 he was the guest on the long-running BBC Radio 4 series Desert Island Discs (repeated 15 March 2013).

Awards

Andersen Award

In 2010 David Almond became the 29th recipient of the so-called Nobel Prize for children's literature, the international Hans Christian Andersen Award for Writing, which biennially recognises the "lasting contribution" of one living author.^[1] (He had been one of five finalists in 2008.)^[10] The jury president, Ms Zohreh Ghaeni from Iran, observed that Almond "writes about children in crisis, while continuously giving hope to them", and cited in particular his first two novels, Skellig and Kit's Wilderness. She called "bibliotherapy" such as she attributed to Almond "a vital activity for all children around the world."^[11] When it named him a finalist months before, the international jury cited his "deeply philosophical novels that appeal to children and adults alike, and encourage readers by his use of magic realism".^[12] For his body of work Almond was also a British nominee for the Astrid Lindgren Award at the same time.^[12]

Others

Almond's major awards include the Carnegie Medal (Skellig);^[13] two Whitbread Awards; the U.S. Michael L. Printz Award for young-adult books (Kit's Wilderness);^[a] the Smarties Prize, ages 9–11 years (The Fire-Eaters); the U.S. Boston Globe–Horn Book Award, Children's Fiction (The Fire-Eaters); Le Prix Sorcieres (France); the Katholischer Kinder-und Jugendbuchpreis (Germany); and a Silver Pencil and three Silver Kisses (Netherlands).^{[clarification needed][citation needed]}

The Skellig prequel My Name is Mina (Hodder, 2010) was a finalist for three major annual awards: the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize,^[14] the Carnegie Medal,^[15] and the (German) Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis.^{[citation needed]}

See also

• Click (novel)

Notes

References

External links

• Official website
• David Almond at Walker Books
• David Almond at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• David Almond at the Internet Book List
• David Almond at British Council: Literature
• Interview with David Almond at BBC Blast ^{[dead link]}
• "Caedmon, the Oldest Surviving English Poet" (audio), David Almond on Caedmon, BBC Radio 3 Anglo-Saxon Portraits, broadcast 23 January 2013

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