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BORN:
Redhill, Surrey, 17th April 1957
EDUCATED:
Cambridge University (English)
Highbury (Football/Facts of Life)
WORKS AND LIVES IN:
Highbury, North London
'Every English writer needs their corner that is forever England - but only a few brave men choose to make that corner Highbury. Who would have thought the square mile around Arsenal's stadium could be a suitable surrogate for the whole wide world?'
Zadie Smith, Time
PREVIOUS JOBS:
English teacher
TEFL teacher
Host for Samsung executives visiting the UK
Journalist
Pop Music Critic for the New Yorker
THE TURNING POINT:
'I started by writing plays. They were sort of screen-cum-radio-cum-TV plays, and they weren't very good … When I left university and I tried to write, everything came out sounding like bad essays, so I thought I should stick to dialogue. I hadn't done enough reading-not of the things I wanted to emulate-so it took me a while, a long while, to grapple with voice … everything changed for me when I read Anne Tyler, Raymond Carver, Richard Ford, and Lorrie Moore, all in about '86-'87 … voice, tone, simplicity, humour, soul ... all of these things seemed to be missing from the contemporary English fiction I'd looked at, and I knew then what I wanted to do'
IN THE BEGINNING:
Nick established himself as a journalist, with features published in The Sunday Times, Esquire, Elle, Vogue, GQ, Time Out, Time, the Literary Review and the Independent
CURRENT PROJECTS:
-'The Richest Man In Britain', a radio show Nick co-wrote with Giles Smith, starring Mark Williams and Russell Tovey
- A music collaboration with Ben Folds to be release next year
NICK'S FIRST
book was a collection of critical essays on American writers, entitled Contemporary American Fiction (1992)
THE BIG BOOKS
Nick's best-known books are the internationally bestselling novels High Fidelity, About A Boy, How To Be Good and A Long Way Down. Nick's non-fiction books include the football memoir Fever Pitch and The Complete Polysyllabic Spree, a collection of Nick's essays on books and culture. He is also the author of Slam, which is vintage Hornby for teenagers. His latest book is Juliet, Naked, a novel about rock stars, relationships and last chances.
THE MOVIES
Fever Pitch, High Fidelity and About A Boy have all been made into successful, and much-loved, films, starring Colin Firth, John Cusak and Hugh Grant. Fever Pitch was also released as a movie in 2005 starring Drew Barrymore. The filming of A Long Way Down is taking place, produced by Johnny Depp. Nick has also scripted the adaptation of Lynn Barber's memoir 'An Education'.
THE MUSIC
Nick is a huge pop music fan. Read the soundtrack of his life (and some of his New Yorker columns) in 31 Songs (2003)
THE CHARITY
Speaking With The Angel (2000), a story collection which Nick edited and contributed to with his own 'Nipplejesus', benefits his eldest son Danny's school Treehouse. The Treehouse Trust is a London-based charity, established in 1997 to provide an 'educational Centre of Excellence' for children with autism. It was set up by a group of parents (including Nick) whose children had recently been diagnosed with autism.
THE PRIZES
1992: Fever Pitch won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award
1999: Nick was awarded the E M Forster Award by the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
2001: How To Be Good was longlisted for the Booker Prize and was named the UK's favourite work of fiction at the WH Smith Book Awards (the only major UK book prize to be voted for by the public)
2002: 31 Songs was shortlisted for the prestigious National Book Critics Circle Award in the USA
2003: Fellow authors, including Germaine Greer, Zadie Smith and Doris Lessing honoured Nick with the Writers' Writer Award at the Orange Word International Writers Festival.
2005: A Long Way Down was shortlisted for the 2005 Whitbread Novel Award.
2006: A Long Way Down was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize.
AN AVERAGE DAY:
'I have an office round the corner from my home. I arrive there between 9:30 and 10 a.m., smoke a lot, write in horrible little two-and-three sentence bursts, with five-minute breaks in between. Check for emails during each break, and get irritated if there aren't any. Go home for lunch. If I'm picking up my son I leave at 3:30. If not, I stay till six. It's all pretty grim! And so dull!' |
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Laughing All the Way to the Cemetery: An interview with Nick
http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,,1464888,00.html
Zadie Smith on Nick Hornby
http://www.time.com/time/europe/hero2004/hornby.html
Nick's page on McSweeneys
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/authorpages/hornby/hornby.html
McSweeneys interview
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/authorpages/hornby/hornby8.html
Guardian interview
http://books.guardian.co.uk/authors/author/0,5917,-88,00.html
Salon interview
http://www.salon.com/weekly/litchat961014.html
Penguin Online interview
http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Author/AuthorPage/0,,0_1000015368,00.html?sym=QUE
Nick Hornby Reader's Group site
http://readers.penguin.co.uk/nf/shared/WebDisplay/0,,201227_1_10,00.html
Writers' Writer Award
http://www.ananova.com/entertainment/story/sm_845598.html?menu=entertainment.books
Online Literary mag, Failbetter, 2003 interview with Nick
http://www.failbetter.com/2003-1/HornbyInterview.htm
Robert McCrum meets Nick Hornby (2001)
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,6903,497115,00.html
Audio of Nick speaking as part of the Orange Word 2002 Fesitval:
http://www.hayfestival.com/2004/ARCHIVE/archiveH.asp |
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