Andrew Miller
Andrew Miller is a British author whose numerous works of fiction have been praised for their thoughtful consideration and sense of place. He is the author of several novels, plays, and short fiction, and his writing has been recognized and awarded numerous international awards and nominations.
Born in 1961 in Bristol, England, Miller grew up with a love of literature and reading from an early age. His parents, both teachers, recognized this affinity, encouraging him to pursue his passion. Miller eventually graduated from Cambridge University with a Masters in English Literature, after which he worked as a drama teacher in South London.
Miller's first two books, Ingenious Pain and Oxygen, were released in the late 1990s and were soon shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the most prestigious book award in the UK. Ingenious Pain is the story of a man born with an intense, life-long obsession with pain. On the surface the narrative follows doctors curious to unlock the key to his unusual affliction. Beneath this lies a deeper exploration into questions of identity and mortality.
Oxygen, on the other hand, interweaves the stories of three very different women, exploring issues of identity and family tensions set in a backdrop of spiritual searching and national unrest in mid-1990s Bosnia. Both works combine captivating atmospheres with honest and relatable characters, as Miller weaves through his stories a thoughtful consideration of the human condition.
Also in the late 1990s, Miller wrote a play, Close Surface, which was performed in London and Edinburgh, for which he was nominated for the Evening Standard Award for Best Play. Since then he has written several collections of short stories and a novel, One Morning Like a Bird, published in 2009, which tells the story of an Englishman who, after a life of quiet disillusionment, embarks on a quest to discover more about the poignant life of a Japanese kamikaze pilot.
More recently, Miller has released Pure, a story focusing on a young French officer in the late 18th century, whose secretive mission to dispose of the bodies of thousands of plague victims forces him to confront his own beliefs and ideas surrounding mortality. He has also published a short story collection, In the Fold which follows the intertwining tales of mothers and their children, marriages, and families and of the resulting insecurities and long lost dreams.
The works of Andrew Miller have been translated into numerous languages and have gained him recognition, ranging from the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize, to the Premio Grinzane Cavour and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. His melancholic yet realistic plots, restrained but thoughtful turns of phrase, and thought-provoking musings and meditations on life, continually captivate and enthral readers of all kinds. He continues to live and write in London.
