Alex Niven (born 18 February 1984, Hexham, Northumberland) is an English writer, poet, editor, and former musician. He is a also currently a Lecturer in English Literature at

Newcastle University Newcastle University (legally the University of Newcastle upon Tyne) is a UK public university, public research university based in Newcastle upon Tyne, North East England. It has overseas campuses in Singapore and Malaysia. The university is ...

and an editor at Repeater Books.

Early life and education

Alex Niven was born in Hexham, Northumberland.

Career

In 2006, Niven was a founding member of the indie band Everything Everything, with friends from Queen Elizabeth High School and played guitar with the band between 2007 and 2009. In 2009, he left the band to study for a doctorate at

St John's College, Oxford St John's College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. Founded as a men's college in 1555, it has been coeducational since 1979.Communication from Michael Riordan, college archivist Its founder, Sir Thomas White, intended to pro ...

and to pursue a writing career. Formerly assistant editor at '' New Left Review'' and editor-in-chief at The Oxonian Review, Niven wrote for The Guardian, The Independent, openDemocracy, Agenda,

The Cambridge Quarterly ''The Cambridge Quarterly'' is a literary journal. It often publishes articles on cinema, music, painting, and sculpture. It also endows a prize for, and publishes, the best Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public univers ...

, English Literary History, Oxford Poetry, Notes and Queries, The Quietus, a number of collective blogs, in addition to his own blog ''The Fantastic Hope'' (2007-2017).

Work

In 2011, Niven's first work of criticism, ''Folk Opposition'', was published by Zero Books. The book attempted to reclaim a variety of folk culture motifs for the political left, and excoriated the "Green Tory" zeitgeist that had accompanied the ascendancy of

David Cameron David William Donald Cameron (born 9 October 1966) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2005 to 2016. He previously served as Leader o ...

's Conservative Party in Britain in 2009-10. Writing in the journal of the Institute for Public Policy Research, Niki Seth-Smith described it as a "rebuttal to ... knee jerk reactions

bout folk culture Bout can mean: People *Viktor Bout, suspected arms dealer *Jan Everts Bout, early settler to New Netherland *Marcel Bout Musical instruments * The outward-facing round parts of the body shape of violins, guitars, and other stringed instrumen ...

by way of careful historicisation and incisive cultural analysis", while Joe Kennedy of The Quietus described it as "one of 2011's most incisive polemics". In 2014, his second book, a study of the

Oasis In ecology, an oasis (; ) is a fertile area of a desert or semi-desert environment'ksar''with its surrounding feeding source, the palm grove, within a relational and circulatory nomadic system.” The location of oases has been of critical imp ...

album '' Definitely Maybe'', was published in

Bloomsbury Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural, intellectual, and educational institutions. Bloomsbury is home of the British Museum, the largest mus ...

33⅓ series (Thirty-Three and a Third) is a series of books, each about a single music album. The series title refers to the rotation speed of a vinyl LP, RPM. History Originally published by Continuum, the series was founded by editor David Barker in ...

. The Times Literary Supplement praised its "convincing modulation between a discussion of the post-Thatcher north-west England that informed Oasis's early lyrics, and the finer points of pentatonic and mixolydian melody governing Noel Gallagher's early songwriting". LA Review of Books reviewer Rhian E. Jones judged the book a success, concluding that "Niven displays a thorough appreciation of what made Oasis good while remaining aware of their shortcomings". In 2014, his first collection of poetry, ''The Last Tape'', was published, and his poem "The Beehive" provided the epigraph to Owen Hatherley's 2012 architecture survey ''A New Kind of Bleak''. In 2019, his third book was published: ''New Model Island: How to Build a Radical Culture beyond the idea of England''. ;Contributing articles *'Covid-19 is helping the Tories redraw the political map of England', '' The Guardian'', 21 September 2020

References

External links

''The Fantastic Hope''
Blog from 2007-2017
Interview in Review 31
not dated.
''Guardian'' author page.

Sukhdev Sandhu's interview-profile of Zero Books authors in ''The Guardian''
February 17, 2012 {{DEFAULTSORT:Niven, Alex 1984 births Living people British male writers Writers from Hexham