Gail Honeyman (born 1972) is a Scottish writer whose

debut novel A debut novel is the first novel a novelist publishes. Debut novels are often the author's first opportunity to make an impact on the publishing industry, and thus the success or failure of a debut novel can affect the ability of the author to p ...

, ''

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine ''Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine'' is the 2017 debut novel by Gail Honeyman, and the winner of the 2017 Costa Debut Novel Award. The story centres on Eleanor Oliphant, a social misfit with a traumatic past who becomes enamoured with a sin ...

'', won the 2017 Costa First Novel Award.

Biography

Born and raised in

Stirling Stirling (; sco, Stirlin; gd, Sruighlea ) is a city in central Scotland, northeast of Glasgow and north-west of Edinburgh. The market town, surrounded by rich farmland, grew up connecting the royal citadel, the medieval old town with its me ...

in central

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

to a mother who worked as a civil servant and a father in science, Honeyman was a voracious reader in her childhood, visiting the library "a ridiculous number of times a week". She studied French language and literature at

Glasgow University , image = UofG Coat of Arms.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms Flag , latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis , motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita , ...

, before continuing her education at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

for a postgraduate course in

French poetry French poetry () is a category of French literature. It may include Francophone poetry composed outside France and poetry written in other languages of France. French prosody and poetics The modern French language does not have a significant st ...

. However, she decided that an academic career was not for her and started a string of "backroom jobs", first as a civil servant in economic development and then as an administrator at Glasgow University. While working as an administrator, Honeyman enrolled in a

Faber Academy 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 ...

writing course, submitting the first three chapters of what would become ''Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine'' to a competition for unpublished fiction by female writers, run by Cambridge's

Lucy Cavendish College Lucy Cavendish College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college is named in honour of Lucy Cavendish (1841–1925), who campaigned for the reform of women's education. History The college was founded in 1965 by ...

. The novel, published in 2017, went on to earn numerous awards and wide critical acclaim.

Books

'' won the 2017 Costa First Novel Award, and since then Honeyman has been interviewed often, including by ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...

'' and

Waterstones Waterstones, formerly Waterstone's, is a British book retailer that operates 311 shops, mainly in the United Kingdom and also other nearby countries. As of February 2014, it employs around 3,500 staff in the UK and Europe. An average-sized Wa ...

. Of her relationship with the book's titular character she told ''The Daily Telegraph'': "Eleanor Oliphant isn't me, or anyone I know utof course I've felt loneliness – everybody does". In January 2018, Honeyman said she was working on a new novel, "set in a different period and location."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Honeyman, Gail 1972 births Living people Scottish women novelists Costa Book Award winners Alumni of the University of Glasgow People from Stirling 21st-century Scottish women writers 21st-century Scottish writers 21st-century Scottish novelists