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Alexander Wright Masters is an English author, screenwriter, and worker with the homeless. He lives in
Cambridge, United Kingdom Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge became ...
. Masters is the son of authors Dexter Masters and Joan Brady. He was educated at Bedales School, and took a first in physics from
King's College London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. In 1836, King's ...
. He then went to St Edmund's College, Cambridge for a further degree in maths, and then the beginnings of a PhD in the philosophy of quantum mechanics. He was studying for an MSc degree in mathematics with the Open University, and working as an assistant at a hostel for the homeless in Cambridge, when he wrote his first book. He is the writer and illustrator of '' Stuart: A Life Backwards'' (), the biography of Stuart Shorter. It explores how a young boy, somewhat disabled from birth, became mentally unstable, criminal and violent, living homeless on the streets of Cambridge. As the title suggests, the book starts from Shorter's adult life, tracing it back in time through his troubled childhood, examining the effects his family, schooling and disability had on his eventual state. Masters wrote the book with Shorter's active and enthusiastic help. Alexander Masters won an Arts Council Writers' Award for ''Stuart'' and went on to win the Guardian First Book Award and the Hawthornden Prize. The book was also shortlisted (in the biography category) for the Whitbread Book-of-the-Year Award, the Samuel Johnson Prize, and the National Book Critics Circle Award in the United States. He also wrote a screenplay adaptation, filmed in 2006 for the BBC and
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, and broadcast in September 2007. It won the
Royal Television Society The Royal Television Society (RTS) is a British-based educational charity for the discussion, and analysis of television in all its forms, past, present, and future. It is the oldest television society in the world. It currently has fourteen r ...
Award in the Single Drama category and the Reims International Television award for the Best TV Screenplay. In 2007, he collaborated with photographer Adrian Clarke on the book ''Gary's Friends'', chronicling the lives of drug and alcohol abusers in
North East England North East England is one of nine official regions of England at the first level of ITL for statistical purposes. The region has three current administrative levels below the region level in the region; combined authority, unitary authorit ...
. Masters is also the author of ''The Genius in My Basement'' (), a biography of mathematician
Simon P. Norton Simon Phillips Norton (28 February 1952 – 14 February 2019)
. In 2016, Masters published ''A Life Discarded: 148 Diaries Found in the Trash'' () Alexander Masters has been portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch in '' Stuart: A Life Backwards'', the 2007 BBC dramatization of his biography of Stuart Shorter.


Publications

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References


External links

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Alexander Masters' staff CV
Kingston University department of humanities website
"'Knife Man Dan' lives on in print"
Peter Taylor-Whiffen, review of ''Stuart: A Life Backwards'' in '' The Independent, 7 June 2005 Year of birth missing (living people) Living people People educated at Bedales School Alumni of St Edmund's College, Cambridge Alumni of King's College London English biographers English screenwriters English male screenwriters English people of American descent 21st-century British biographers English male non-fiction writers 21st-century British screenwriters 21st-century English male writers Male biographers {{UK-nonfiction-writer-stub