Christopher Reid at Humber Mouth 2007 (708886657)

Christopher John Reid,

FRSL The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820, by George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV, to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, th ...

(born 13 May 1949) is a British poet, essayist,

cartoonist A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comic book illustrators in that they produce both the literary and ...

, and writer. In January 2010 he won the 2009 Costa Book Award for ''A Scattering'', written as a tribute to his late wife, the actress

Lucinda Gane Lucinda Gane (20 October 1949 – 6 October 2005) was a British actress, known for her role as the absent-minded science teacher Miss Terri Mooney in the children's television serial ''Grange Hill'', a role she played from 1980 to 1983. In 1985� ...

. Beside winning the poetry category, Reid became the first poet to take the overall Costa Book of the Year since

Seamus Heaney Seamus Justin Heaney (; 13 April 1939 – 30 August 2013) was an Irish poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature.

in 1999. He had been nominated for

Whitbread Awards The Costa Book Awards were a set of annual literary awards recognising English-language books by writers based in UK and Ireland. Originally named the Whitbread Book Awards from 1971 to 2005 after its first sponsor, the Whitbread company, then ...

in 1996 and in 1997 (Costa Awards under their previous name).

Biography

Reid was born in

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

. A contemporary of Martin Amis, he was educated at

Tonbridge School (God Giveth the Increase) , established = , closed = , type = Public schoolIndependent day and boarding , religion = , president = , head_label ...

and

Exeter College, Oxford Exeter College (in full: The Rector and Scholars of Exeter College in the University of Oxford) is one of the Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England and the fourth-oldest college of the un ...

. He is an exponent of

Martian poetry Martian poetry was a minor movement in British poetry in the late 1970s and early 1980s, in which everyday things and human behaviour are described in a strange way, as if by a visiting Martian who does not understand them. Poets most closely as ...

, which employs unusual metaphors to render everyday experiences and objects unfamiliar. He has worked as poetry editor at

Faber and Faber Faber and Faber Limited, usually abbreviated to Faber, is an independent publishing house in London. Published authors and poets include T. S. Eliot (an early Faber editor and director), W. H. Auden, Margaret Storey, William Golding, Samuel B ...

and Professor of

Creative Writing Creative writing is any writing that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature, typically identified by an emphasis on narrative craft, character development, and the use of literary ...

at the

University of Hull The University of Hull is a public research university in Kingston upon Hull, a city in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It was founded in 1927 as University College Hull. The main university campus is located in Hull and is home to the Hull ...

Books

*''Arcadia'' (1979) – 1980

Somerset Maugham Award The Somerset Maugham Award is a British literary prize given each year by the Society of Authors. Set up by William Somerset Maugham in 1947 the awards enable young writers to enrich their work by gaining experience in foreign countries. The awa ...

Hawthornden Prize The Hawthornden Prize is a British literary award that was established in 1919 by Alice Warrender, who was born at Hawthornden Castle. Authors under the age of 41 are awarded on the quality of their "imaginative literature", which can be written ...

*''Pea Soup'' (1982) *''Katerina Brac'' (1985) *''In The Echoey Tunnel'' (1991) *''Universes'' (1994) *''Expanded Universes'' (1996) *''Two Dogs on a Pub Roof'' (1996) *''Mermaids Explained'' (2001) *''For and After'' (2003) *''Mr Mouth'' (2005) *''

A Scattering A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes' ...

'' (2009) – Book of the Year, 2009 Costa Book Awards *''The Song of Lunch'' (2009) *''A Box of Tricks for Anna Zyx'' (2009) *''Selected Poems'' (2011) *''Nonsense'' (2012) *''Six Bad Poets'' (2013) *''Anniversary'' (2015) *''The Curiosities'' (2015) *''The Late Sun'' (2020) ; For children * ''All Sorts: poems'', illustrated by Sara Fanelli (London: Ondt & Gracehoper, 1999) *''Alphabicycle Order'', ill. Fanelli (Ondt & Gracehoper, 2001) *''Old Toffer's Book of Consequential Dogs'', illustrated by Elliott Elam — companion book to T.S. Eliot's ''Old Possum's Practical Cats'' — (Faber & Faber, 2018) ; As editor *''The Poetry Book Society

Anthology In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs or excerpts by different authors. In genre fiction, the term ''anthology'' typically categ ...

1989-1990'' (1989) *''Sounds Good: 101 Poems to be Heard'' (1990) *''The May Anthology of Oxford and Cambridge Poetry 1997'' (1997) *''Not to Speak of the Dog: 101 Short Stories in Verse'' (2000) *''Selected Letters of

Ted Hughes Edward James "Ted" Hughes (17 August 1930 – 28 October 1998) was an English poet, translator, and children's writer. Critics frequently rank him as one of the best poets of his generation and one of the twentieth century's greatest wri ...

'' (2007)

References

External links

* *
Alphabicycle Order horn concerto
at

WorldCat WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the OCL ...

– monologue with music (chorus with orchestra) by

Colin Matthews Colin Matthews, OBE (born 13 February 1946) is an English composer of contemporary classical music. Noted for his large-scale orchestral compositions, Matthews is also a prolific arranger of other composer's music, including works by Berlioz, ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Reid, Christopher 1949 births Living people Alumni of Exeter College, Oxford British essayists British poets British cartoonists People educated at Tonbridge School Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature Costa Book Award winners British male essayists British male poets

Biography

Books

See also

References

External links