Dominic Cooper (born 1944) is a British novelist, poet and watchmaker. He won the
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 ...
for his novel ''The Dead of Winter'' (1975).
Background & career
Born near
Winchester
Winchester is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs Nation ...
, he is the son of musicologist
Martin Cooper and artist Mary Cooper.
After university, he worked in London for the
Decca Record Company and for the publishers, Fabbri & Partners. In 1970, he went to live in
Iceland
Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...
, began to concentrate on writing, and taught English in a language school in
Reykjavík
Reykjavík ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Iceland. It is located in southwestern Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxaflói bay. Its latitude is 64°08' N, making it the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state. With a po ...
to earn a living.
In 1972, he moved to Sweden and then to the
Isle of Mull
The Isle of Mull ( gd, An t-Eilean Muileach ) or just Mull (; gd, Muile, links=no ) is the second-largest island of the Inner Hebrides (after Skye) and lies off the west coast of Scotland in the Council areas of Scotland, council area of Arg ...
in Argyll, Scotland, where he drew inspiration from the landscape and people to write his first novel, ''The Dead of Winter'', published in 1975. This won him the Somerset Maugham Award in 1976.
Little of his poetry has been published, but commenting on the poetic quality of his fiction, he has said: ″By nature I feel myself to be first and foremost a poet ... but poetry for me has always been an essentially private affair and I have never felt any great need for it to be published.″
He has described writing his fourth book, ''The Horn Fellow'', set in Northern Europe around 500 BC, as “perhaps the greatest experience of my life” and its publication as being met “with a mixture of incomprehension and vague ridicule”.
[from archived, unabridged interview supporting article of 31.03.2007 .] He has written little during the intervening years.
In 1973 he undertook training in
horology
Horology (; related to Latin '; ; , interfix ''-o-'', and suffix ''-logy''), . is the study of the measurement of time. Clocks, watches, clockwork, sundials, hourglasses, clepsydras, timers, time recorders, marine chronometers, and atomic cl ...
in
Edinburgh
Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...
and since then he has worked restoring clocks and watches. He returned to the
West Highlands
The Highlands ( sco, the Hielands; gd, a’ Ghàidhealtachd , 'the place of the Gaels') is a historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland ...
in 1985 and soon afterwards built himself a house on a remote part of the North Argyll coast where he now lives.
Works
::''The Dead of Winter''
:::::::Chatto & Windus 1975
:::::::St Martin’s Press, NY 1975
:::::::Faber & Faber 1985
:::::::Thirsty Press 2010
:::::::Italian edition, Einaudi 1989
:::::::Spanish edition, Mario Muchnik 2003
:::::::French edition, Métailié 2006
:::::::''Somerset Maugham Award'' 1976
::''Sunrise''
:::::::Chatto & Windus 1977
:::::::Faber & Faber 1985
::''Men at Axlir''
:::::::Chatto & Windus 1978
:::::::St Martin’s Press, NY 1978
:::::::Collins Harvill 1988
:::::::Icelandic edition, Örn og Örlygur 1980
::''The Horn Fellow''
:::::::Faber & Faber 1987
::''Jack Fletcher''
:::::::Encounter 1978
::''Judgements of Value'' (editor)
:::::::OUP 1988
::''The Open Places'' (essay)
:::::::self-published 1989
also short stories, poems, essays and the script for ''Jack Fletcher'', BBC TV 1979.
References
External links
Personal website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cooper, Dominic
Scottish novelists
Scottish poets
Living people
1944 births