Naeem Murr (born March 1965) is a British-born novelist and short story writer of Lebanese descent. He is the author of three

novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...

s acclaimed for their dark portraiture and stark, original prose. He currently lives in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

with his wife, poet Averill Curd

Biography

Born in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, Murr moved to the United States in his early twenties and has been a writer-in-residence at numerous universities, including

Western Michigan University Western Michigan University (Western Michigan, Western or WMU) is a public research university in Kalamazoo, Michigan. It was initially established as Western State Normal School in 1903 by Governor Aaron T. Bliss for the training of teachers ...

, the

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus Universit ...

, and

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

and was a

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

Creative Writing Fellow. His first novel, ''The Boy'', concerns a father's search for a strange orphan he adopted into his family who has fled to live in a slum as a prostitute. It was a

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

Notable Book. A second novel, ''The Genius of the Sea'', explores the fears and failures of a social-worker coming to terms with his life by talking with a man who now occupies his dead mother's apartment. His most recent book ''The Perfect Man'' was published in 2007 to critical acclaim. The novel was awarded The Commonwealth Writers' Prize for the Best Book of Europe/South Asia, and was long-listed for the

Man Booker Prize The Booker Prize, formerly known as the Booker Prize for Fiction (1969–2001) and the Man Booker Prize (2002–2019), is a literary prize awarded each year for the best novel written in English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland. ...

. Set in the 1950s, ''The Perfect Man'' details the life of an unwanted boy sent first from India to London, and then to small-town

Missouri Missouri is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...

, and the complex web of relationships he develops as he matures. Murr has received many awards for his writing, including a

Lambda Literary Award Lambda Literary Awards, also known as the "Lammys", are awarded yearly by Lambda Literary to recognize the crucial role LGBTQ writers play in shaping the world. The Lammys celebrate the very best in LGBTQ literature.The awards were instituted i ...

, a Lannan Residency Fellowship, a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

, a

PEN Open Book Award PEN/Open Book (known as the Beyond Margins Award through 2009) is a program intended to foster racial and ethnic diversity within the literary and publishing communities, and works to establish access for diverse literary groups to the publishing i ...

and a Stegner Fellowship.

Bibliography

*''The Boy'' (1998) *''The Genius of the Sea'' (2003) *''The Perfect Man'' (2007) (UK publication in 2006)

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Murr, Naeem 21st-century English novelists Living people University of Missouri faculty British people of Lebanese descent 1965 births Lambda Literary Award winners English male novelists 21st-century English male writers