Rupert Thomson

He was born as Rupert Farquhar-Thomson in 1955 in Eastbourne, East Sussex, England.[1][2] His mother died when he was eight.[1] Following this he was educated as a boarder at Christ's Hospital School.[2] At the age of seventeen, he was awarded a scholarship to Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge where he studied Medieval History and Political Philosophy.[1] After graduating, he travelled in the US and Mexico, then he lived in Athens where he worked as a private English tutor and attempted to write a novel. In 1978 he moved to London; he worked there as a copywriter until 1982 when he abandoned his job to write full-time.

His first novel, Dreams of Leaving, was bought by Liz Calder, and published by Bloomsbury in June 1987. Thomson has written eleven novels. His third novel, Air and Fire, which was set in Baja California in the late nineteenth century, was shortlisted for the Writers' Guild Fiction Book of the Year. His fourth novel, The Insult, was shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Prize, and appeared on a list of 100 must-read books chosen by David Bowie.[3] His sixth novel, The Book of Revelation, was made into a feature film in 2006 by the Australian writer/director, Ana Kokkinos.[4] In 2007 his eighth novel, Death of a Murderer was shortlisted for the Costa Novel of the Year.[5]

With his 2010 memoir, This Party's Got to Stop, he ventured into non-fiction for the first time, and explored events surrounding his father's death, and his complex relationship with his brothers and his extended family. This Party's Got to Stop won the Writers' Guild Non Fiction Book of the Year.[6]

His latest novel, Never Anyone But You, which is based on the true story of two extraordinary French women, Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, was shortlisted for the 2018 American Library in Paris Book Award.[7]

Thomson has previously lived in Athens, Berlin, New York, Rome, Sydney, Tokyo, and Barcelona but presently resides in South London.

He became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2015.[8]

• Dreams of Leaving, 1987
• The Five Gates of Hell, 1991
• Air and Fire, 1993
• The Insult, 1996
• Soft, 1998
• The Book of Revelation, 1999
• Divided Kingdom, 2005[9]
• Death of a Murderer, 2007
• Secrecy, 2013[10] (about Gaetano Giulio Zumbo)
• Katherine Carlyle, 2015[11]
• Never Anyone But You, 2018
• NVK (as Temple Drake), 2020

• This Party's Got to Stop, 2010

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]