Nicholas Shakespeare | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | (1957-03-03)3 March 1957 (age 68) Worcester, Worcestershire, England |
| Language | English |
| Alma mater | Magdalene College, Cambridge |
| Relatives | Geoffrey Shakespeare (great-uncle)[1][2] |
Nicholas William Richmond ShakespeareFRSL (born 3 March 1957) is a British novelist and biographer, described by theWall Street Journal as "one of the best English novelists of our time".[3] Shakespeare is also known for his charity work.
Born inWorcester, England to diplomatJohn William Richmond Shakespeare and his wife Lalage Ann, daughter of the travel writer and journalistS. P. B. Mais,[4] Shakespeare grew up in the Far East and in South America, including Brazil, where his father worked at the British Embassy between 1966 and 1969. John Shakespeare was laterchargé d'affaires atBuenos Aires,[5] before serving asAmbassador toPeru from 1983 to 1987, andAmbassador toMorocco from 1987 to 1990. Nicholas was educated at theDragon School preparatory school inOxford, then atWinchester College and atMagdalene College,Cambridge. He worked as a journalist forBBC television and then onThe Times as assistant arts and literary editor. From 1988 to 1991, he was literary editor ofThe Daily Telegraph andThe Sunday Telegraph.[6]
Shakespeare's time in South America is represented in two novels,The Vision of Elena Silves (1989,Somerset Maugham Award,Betty Trask Award) andThe Dancer Upstairs (1995, American Library Association Award for The Best Novel of the Year). Other works from this period areThe Men Who Would Be King (1984),Londoners (1986) andThe High Flyer (1993, long-listed for theBooker Prize).
In 1999, Shakespeare published his biography ofBruce Chatwin to widespread critical acclaim. This was followed by the novelSnowleg (2004, long-listed for the Booker Prize,Dublin IMPAC Award) a "place" book,In Tasmania (2004, winner of theTasmania Book Prize 2007),Secrets of the Sea (2007, short-listed for the Commonwealth Writer's prize) andInheritance (2010, long-listed for Dublin IMPAC Award). In 2010, he publishedUnder the Sun, the letters of Bruce Chatwin, which he co-edited with Elizabeth Chatwin.
Nicholas Shakespeare has made several extended biographies for television: onEvelyn Waugh,Mario Vargas Llosa,[7] Bruce Chatwin,[8]Martha Gellhorn, andDirk Bogarde.[9]The Dancer Upstairs was made into a featurefilm of the same name in 2002,[10] for which Shakespeare wrote the screenplay and whichJohn Malkovich directed. Shakespeare was nominated as one ofGranta's Best of British Young Novelists in 1993. He has written articles forGranta, theLondon Review of Books,The Times Literary Supplement andThe Monthly, among other publications.
Shakespeare's novels, which have been translated into 22 languages, place ordinary people against a background of significant events, as withThe Dancer Upstairs, which deals withAbimael Guzmán, leader of Peru'sShining Path; andSnowleg, set partly during theCold War inEast Germany.
In 1999, Shakespeare was made a Fellow of theRoyal Society of Literature.[11]
In 2010 Shakespeare was invited by the Anglo-Argentine Society to give the prestigious Borges Lecture in London.
In January 2012, according to journalists, Nicholas Shakespeare's writings were mistakenly confused forWilliam Shakespeare's by French presidential candidateFrançois Hollande[12] when he said: "Let me quote Shakespeare, 'they failed because they did not start with a dream'" (Je me permets de citer Shakespeare, ils ont échoué parce qu'ils n'ont pas commencé par le rêve.)
In 2013, Shakespeare published an account of his aunt,Priscilla: The Hidden Life of an Englishwoman in Wartime France.
In 2015, Shakespeare published a collection of stories,Stories from Other Places. The central novella, "Oddfellows", was based on theBattle of Broken Hill, a little-known jihadi attack in the Australian outback 100 years ago. On 1 January 1915, two Afghan camel drivers answered the Turkish sultan's call for a holy war against the British Empire, and attacked a picnic train of 1200 men women and children in the iron-ore town of Broken Hill, killing four. The incident was the only known act of hostility on Australian soil in World War One.The Sunday Telegraph described them as "honed miniatures" and the Australian critic Peter Craven in theSydney Morning Herald wrote: "I do not expect to read a more formidable piece of short fiction this year."
In 2016, Shakespeare was a visiting fellow atAll Souls College, Oxford, where he wrote the historical narrative "Six Minutes in May: How Churchill Unexpectedly Became Prime Minister" (2017), about the disastrous Norway Campaign of April 1940, which led to Churchill's unanticipated accession on Friday 10 May. Shakespeare's account was nominated as a Book of the Year inThe Economist,The Guardian,The Observer,The Scotsman,The Daily Telegraph (as No. 2 of "the Best 50 Books of 2017"), andThe Australian, where Peter Craven wrote: "Shakespeare has written a book that will captivate readers and fill professional historians with envy at how far he outclasses them."
In 2024, Shakespeare publishedIan Fleming: The Complete Man, a biography ofJames Bond creator Ian Fleming.[13] The project was authorised by Fleming's estate.[14] TheWall Street Journal's Anna Mundow called the book "arresting",The Economist called it "definitive",[15]The Australian "a masterpiece... His book is better than almost any non-fiction ever gets, a work of literature in its own right",[16] whileWashington Post columnist Michael Dirda also praised Shakespeare's work as 'a dazzling, even dizzying achievement'.[17]CrimeReads named the work one of its "best reviewed" books in April 2024.[18]
Shakespeare promoted the Fleming biography at literature festivals and other global events, including a collaboration with theInternational Spy Museum inWashington, D.C.[19][20][21] Shakespeare claimed he took on the project after "discovering that [Fleming's] war work was indeed significant, as well as how much kinder he was in life than his posthumous caricature suggested."[22][23] The Fleming biography also recounts the original casting ofSean Connery in the role of Bond during the 1960s.[24] It won the 2024CWA Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction.[25]
Shakespeare has worked with charities such asOxfam, for which he has written several times, and the Anita Goulden Trust, of which he has been the patron since 2000; the charity, which helps children in the Peruvian city ofPiura, was set up following an article that Shakespeare wrote for theDaily Telegraph magazine, which raised more than £350,000.
In 2009, Shakespeare donated the short story "The Death of Marat" to Oxfam'sOx-Tales project, four collections of UK stories written by 38 authors. Shakespeare's contribution was published in theEarth collection.[26] He also contributed a story, "The Return of the Native", to OxTravels, a travel anthology that was produced to raise money for Oxfam's work.
In October 2012, Shakespeare travelled to Cambodia with photographer Emma Hardy to visit Oxfam's work. He wrote two articles about the trip, "Beyond The Killing Fields",[27] which was published inIntelligent Life, and "How The Dead Live",[28] which was published inNew Statesman.
