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James Meek (writer)

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This article is about a living British writer. For other people named James Meek, see James Meek (disambiguation).

James Meek
Bornc.1962
London
OccupationJournalist, novelist
EducationGrove Academy[citation needed]
Alma materUniversity of Edinburgh

James Meek (born 1962) is a British journalist and novelist, author of The People's Act of Love. He was born in London, England, and grew up in Dundee, Scotland.[1]

Biography

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Meek attended school at Grove Academy[citation needed] in Broughty Ferry, Dundee, and studied at Edinburgh University.[2] His first short stories were published in the New Edinburgh Review and he collaborated with Duncan McLean on a play, Faculty of Rats, which starred Angus Macfadyen.[3]

After a few years in England Meek returned to Edinburgh in 1988, where he worked for The Scotsman. The following year, his first novel, McFarlane Boils the Sea, was published.[4] In 1990 he helped McLean set up the garage publishing house Clocktower Press.[5]

In 1991, Meek moved to Kyiv in Ukraine, and in 1994 to Moscow in Russia. He joined the staff of The Guardian, becoming its Moscow bureau chief. In 1999, he moved to London. He left the Guardian in 2005. He is the author of five novels, two books of short stories and a book of essays about privatisation. He is a contributing editor to the London Review of Books.

Fiction

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In the 1990s and early 2000s, Meek was associated with the emerging experimental realist school of Scottish writers, including Irvine Welsh and Alan Warner, appearing with them on the pages of the Kevin Williamson-edited short story collection Children of Albion Rovers.[6] His fiction during this time – two novels and two books of short stories – was characterised by surrealism and absurdism and influenced by writers such as Franz Kafka and James Kelman.[7][8][9] Meek has described it as "magical dirty realism".[10]

Meek’s third novel, The People’s Act of Love, published in 2005, brought him critical acclaim[11][12][13] and a wider audience. It was translated into more than twenty languages and earned a number of awards and a nomination for the Booker Prize. Newsweek magazine named it one of the top ten works of fiction of the 2000s.[14] Johnny Depp optioned the book for a film adaptation.[15]

The People's Act of Love, about a woman and her three lovers in a small Siberian town during the Russian Civil War,[16] was followed by We Are Now Beginning Our Descent (2008), the story of a journalist who travels to Afghanistan immediately after 9/11,[17] and The Heart Broke In (2012), set in contemporary Britain, where a newspaper editor blackmails a TV producer into betraying his sister.[18]

Journalism

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Besides reporting on Britain and the former Soviet Union, Meek covered the military conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq after 9/11. In 2003 he crossed the border from Kuwait into Iraq, following the invading American armies to Baghdad in a small group of journalists that included Dexter Filkins.[19]

In 2014 Meek published Private Island, a collection of essays, mainly from the London Review of Books, about the privatisation of Britain.

Awards and honours: Fiction

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Awards and honours: Non-fiction

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Bibliography

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  • McFarlane Boils the Sea (Polygon, 1989), ISBN 0-7486-6006-2
  • Last Orders and Other Stories (Polygon, 1992), ISBN 0-7486-6127-1
  • Drivetime (Polygon, 1995), ISBN 0-7486-6205-7
  • The Museum of Doubt (Rebel Inc, 2000), ISBN 1-84195-808-5
  • The People's Act of Love (Canongate, 2005), ISBN 1-84195-706-2
  • We Are Now Beginning Our Descent (Canongate, 2008), ISBN 1-84195-988-X
  • The Heart Broke In (Canongate, 2012) ISBN 9780857862907
  • Private Island. Why Britain Now Belongs to Someone Else (Verso, 2014), ISBN 978-1781682906
  • Dreams of Leaving and Remaining (Verso, 2019), ISBN 9781788735230
  • To Calais, In Ordinary Time (Canongate, 2019), ISBN 9781786896742

Notes

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  1. ^ Ramaswamy, Chitra (30 August 2012). "Interview: James Meek, author". The Scotsman. Retrieved 20 November 2024.
  2. ^ Lane, Johanna (2 July 2012). "Collisions with Strangeness: James Meek". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved 20 November 2024.
  3. ^ "Actors Actresses Acting Schools Celebrity Information Fansites About Stars and 4 Star Hotels".
  4. ^ "biography". www.jamesmeek.net. Archived from the original on 10 August 2013.
  5. ^ Mclean, Duncan (1997). ahead of its time. Vintage. p. ix–xxii. ISBN 0-099-26848-5.
  6. ^ Williamson, Kevin (ed)(1997). Children of Albion Rovers. Rebel Inc. ISBN 0862417317
  7. ^ "The Velvet - Will Christopher Baer, Craig Clevenger and Stephen Graham Jones - Interview: James Meek". welcometothevelvet.com. Archived from the original on 23 November 2011.
  8. ^ Leishman, David (2008). "Reason, Justice, Cannibalism". Études Écossaises (11): 127–142. doi:10.4000/etudesecossaises.79.
  9. ^ "What if There is a God? - Colin Waters". Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 18 September 2014.
  10. ^ "Aerodrome.co.za".
  11. ^ Dirda, Michael (26 February 2006). "THE PEOPLE'S ACT OF LOVE: A Novel By James Meek". The Washington Post. Retrieved 1 July 2022.
  12. ^ Welsh, Irvine (9 July 2005). "The People's Act of Love by James Meek review – a hymn to humanity". TheGuardian.com.
  13. ^ Wood, Michael (21 July 2005). "Dynamite for Cologne". London Review of Books. 27 (14).
  14. ^ "'The People's Act of Love', by James Meek - Best Fictional Books - Newsweek 2010". Archived from the original on 23 October 2013. Retrieved 18 September 2014.
  15. ^ Renner, Amy (15 December 2006). "The People's Act of Love Movie". Movie Insider.
  16. ^ Meek, James, The People's Act of Love, Canongate, 2005, ISBN 1-84195-654-6.
  17. ^ Meek, James, We Are Now Beginning Our Descent, Canongate, 2008, ISBN 1-84195-988-X.
  18. ^ Meek, James, The Heart Broke In, Canongate, 2012, ISBN 0-85786-290-1.
  19. ^ Meek, James, "With The Invaders", in Granta Issue 83, This Overheating World, 2003.
  20. ^ "Costa Book Awards: 2012 shortlists announced". BBC News. 20 November 2012. Retrieved 21 November 2012.
  21. ^ "Costa Prize 2012: Graphic books take the lead". Daily Telegraph UK. 20 November 2012. Retrieved 21 November 2012.
  22. ^ "IUCN - Past Awards". Archived from the original on 23 October 2013. Retrieved 21 October 2013.
  23. ^ "British Press Awards: Past winners". Press Gazette. 29 November 2007. Retrieved 20 November 2024.
  24. ^ "Reading by James Meek - John Tilney Writer in Residence". University of York. 6 May 2014. Retrieved 20 November 2024.
  25. ^ "Program: James Meek's The Heart Broke In". ABC. 27 October 2012. Retrieved 20 November 2024.
  26. ^ Flood, Alison (21 May 2015). "James Meek wins Orwell prize for political writing". The Guardian. Retrieved 20 November 2024.
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