Joseph O'Neill was born inCork, Ireland, on 23 February 1964.[3][4] He is of half-Irish and half-Turkish ancestry.[5]
O'Neill's parents moved around much in O'Neill's youth: O'Neill spent time inMozambique as a toddler and inTurkey until the age of four, and he also lived inIran.[4] From the age of six, O'Neill lived in theNetherlands, where he attended theLycée français de La Haye and theBritish School in the Netherlands. He read law atGirton College,Cambridge, preferring it over English because "literature was too precious" and he wanted it to remain a hobby. O'Neill started off his literary career in poetry but had turned away from it by the age of 24.[4] After being called to theEnglish Bar in 1987, he spent a year writing his first novel. O'Neill then entered full-time practice as abarrister in London, principally in the field of business law.[6] Since 1998 he has lived in New York City.[citation needed]
O'Neill is the author of five novels. He is best known forNetherland, which was published in May 2008 and was featured on the cover of theNew York Times Book Review, where it was called "the wittiest, angriest, most exacting and most desolate work of fiction we've yet had about life in New York and London after theWorld Trade Center fell".[7] It was included inThe New York Times list of the10 Best Books of 2008.[8] Literary criticJames Wood called it "one of the most remarkablepostcolonial books I have ever read". In an interview with theBBC in June 2009, US PresidentBarack Obama revealed that he was reading it, describing it as "an excellent novel."[9]
Among the books on the longlist, it was the favourite to win theMan Booker Prize.[10] However, on 9 September 2008, the Booker shortlist was announced, and the novel failed to make the list.[11] The book received the 2009 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction[12] and the 2009 Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award.[13] It was shortlisted for the Dublin International IMPAC Award.[14]
His next novel,The Dog (2014), was longlisted for theMan Booker Prize for Fiction,[15] named a Notable Book of 2014 byThe New York Times,[16] and shortlisted for the Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction.[17] His most recent novel,Godwin, was published in June 2024. It was a Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction[18] and shortlisted for the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award.[19]
O'Neill is also the author ofGood Trouble (2018), a collection of short stories, most of which first appeared in theNew Yorker orHarper's magazine. Two of his stories have been awarded an O. Henry prize.[20][21] Others have been anthologized in:
New Irish Short Stories (ed. Joseph O'Connor) (Faber & Faber) (2011)
Faber Book of Best New Irish Short Stories (ed. David Marcus) (Faber & Faber) (2007)
Dislocation: Stories from a New Ireland (ed. Caroline Walsh) (Carroll & Graf) (2003)
Phoenix Irish Short Stories (ed. David Marcus) (Phoenix) (1999)
O'Neill has also written a non-fiction book,Blood-Dark Track: A Family History, which was a New York Times Notable Book for 2002 and a Book of the Year for theEconomist and theIrish Times.
O'Neill speaks English, French andDutch.[4] He played club cricket in the Netherlands and the UK, and has played for many years at theStaten Island Cricket Club, much like hisNetherland protagonist Hans.[24] His love of cricket continues and he is an active player (as of 2015[update]).[25] In an interview withThe Paris Review in 2014 O'Neill said, explaining his interest in writing about Dubai inThe Dog, "I’ve moved around so much and lived in so many different places that I don’t really belong to a particular place."[26] He lives in Brooklyn with his partner, writerRivka Galchen.
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