Jonathan Coe

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Jonathan Coe, born August 19, 1961 in Birmingham, is an English novelist and writer. His work usually has an underlying preoccupation with social issues, although this is often expressed humorously in the form of satire. For example, What a Carve Up! reworked the plot of an old 1960s spoof horror film of the same name, in the light of the 'carve up' of Britain's resources which some felt was carried out by Margaret Thatcher's right-wing Conservative governments of the 1980s. He studied at King Edward's School, Birmingham and Trinity College, Cambridge, before teaching at the University of Warwick.

Both What a Carve Up! and The Rotters' Club have been adapted as drama serials for BBC Radio 4; The Rotters' Club was also adapted for television and broadcast on BBC Two. The Dwarves of Death was filmed as Five Seconds to Spare.

Novels

The Accidental Woman Duckworth, 1987
A Touch of Love Duckworth, 1989
The Dwarves of Death Fourth Estate, 1990
What a Carve Up! Viking, 1994 (winner of the 1995 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize)
The House of Sleep Viking, 1997 (winner of the Prix Médicis)
The Rotters' Club Viking, 2001 (winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize).
The Closed Circle Viking, 2004

Non-fiction

Humphrey Bogart: Take It and Like It Bloomsbury, 1991, a biography of Humphrey Bogart
James Stewart: Leading Man Bloomsbury, 1994, a James Stewart biography
Like a Fiery Elephant: The Story of B. S. Johnson Picador, 2004 (winner of the 2005 Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction)

External links

[Closing the Circle: Jonathan Coe In Interview]
[Online discussion about Jonathan Coe and B.S. Johnson]
["Letter from England: A Blairite Novel"] Review of Coe's The Closed Circle in n+1 magazine.
[] at [www.contemporarywriters.com]

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