Scottish author (born 1968)
Andrew O'Hagan
FRSL
(born 1968) is a Scottish novelist and non-fiction author. Three of his novels have been nominated for the
Booker Prize
and he has won several awards, including the
Los Angeles Times
Book Prize
.
His most recent novel as of 2024
[update]
is
Caledonian Road
(2024) published by
Faber
. His previous novel
Mayflies
(2020) won the
Christopher Isherwood Prize
, and was adapted into a
two-part BBC television drama of the same name
. O'Hagan was executive producer of the TV adaptation.
Early life and education
[
edit
]
O'Hagan was born in
Glasgow City Centre
in 1968,
[1]
[2]
of Irish Catholic descent, and grew up in
Kilwinning
,
North Ayrshire
.
[3]
His mother was a school cleaner, his father worked as a
joiner
in
Paisley
, and he had four elder brothers.
[1]
His father was a violent
alcoholic
, and as a boy, he would hide books from his father under his bed.
[4]
He attended St Winning's Primary then
St Michael's Academy
before studying at the
University of Strathclyde
,
[3]
the first in his family to reach tertiary education. He earned his BA (Honours) in English in 1990.
[1]
Writing career
[
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]
In 1991, O'Hagan joined the staff of the
London Review of Books
, where he worked for four years.
[5]
In 1995, he published his first book,
The Missing
, which drew from his own childhood and explored the lives of people who have gone missing in Britain and the families left behind.
The Missing
was shortlisted for three literary awards: the Esquire Award, the
Saltire Society
Scottish First Book of the Year Award, and the McVities Prize for Scottish Writer of the Year award.
[2]
In 1999, his debut novel,
Our Fathers
was nominated for several awards, including the
Booker Prize
, the
Whitbread First Novel Award
and the
International Dublin Literary Award
. It won the
Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize
.
[2]
In 2003, his next novel
Personality
, which features a character similar to
Lena Zavaroni
, won the
James Tait Black Memorial Prize
for fiction. That same year, O'Hagan won the
E. M. Forster Award
from the
American Academy of Arts and Letters
.
[6]
In 2006, his third novel,
Be Near Me
, was published by
Faber and Faber
and long-listed for that year's Booker Prize. It went on to win the
Los Angeles Times
'
s 2007 Prize for Fiction.
[7]
In 2008, he edited a new selection of Robert Burns's poems for
Canongate Books
, published as
A Night Out with Robert Burns
. A copy was lodged in every secondary school in Scotland. Following on from this, he wrote and presented a three-part film on Burns for the BBC,
The World According to Robert Burns
, first on 5 January 2009. In January 2011,
Scotland on Sunday
gave away 80,000 copies of the book. Also in 2008, Faber & Faber published O'Hagan's first non-fiction collection,
The Atlantic Ocean: Essays on Britain and America
, which was shortlisted for the 2008 Saltire Book of the Year Award.
[8]
His 2010 novel,
The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog, and of His Friend Marilyn Monroe
,
[9]
is told in the voice of a Scottish Maltese poodle ("Maf"), the name of the real dog given by
Frank Sinatra
to
Marilyn Monroe
in 1960. It was published by Faber & Faber in May 2010 and won O'Hagan a
Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland Award
.
In 2012, O'Hagan worked on a theatrical production about the crisis in British newspapers, entitled
Enquirer
, with the
National Theatre of Scotland
.
[10]
In March 2014, O'Hagan wrote about his experience as a
ghost-writer
for
Julian Assange
's autobiography (published by
Canongate
and
Alfred A. Knopf
). His essay, entitled "Ghosting",
[11]
published in the
London Review of Books
, gained significant media attention because of his description of Assange's character and strained relationships with past and present colleagues.
[12]
[13]
[14]
In 2015, O'Hagan published his fifth novel
The Illuminations: A Novel
, which was longlisted for the
Booker Prize
.
[15]
In June 2016, the
London Review of Books
published a 35,612-word essay by O'Hagan, titled "The Satoshi Affair: Andrew O'Hagan on the many lives of Satoshi Nakamoto", which followed the events surrounding programmer
Craig Wright's
claim to be
bitcoin
founder,
Satoshi Nakomoto
.
[16]
In the article, O'Hagan describes how he was approached by Wright and nTrust, a group that he was associated with, in order to cover the exposure of Craig Wright's identity as Satoshi. Though the article is inconclusive as to the true identity of Satoshi, some have taken it as evidence that Wright is a fraud.
[17]
In October 2017, O'Hagan published
The Secret Life: Three True Stories of the Digital Age
which includes stories about his attempt to help Julian Assange write his memoirs, the author using the identity of a deceased man to make a new life on the Internet, and expanding on Craig Wright's claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto.
[18]
In September 2020, O'Hagan published his sixth novel,
Mayflies
.
[4]
His essays, reports and stories have appeared in
London Review of Books
,
New York Review of Books
,
Granta
,
The Guardian
and
The New Yorker
.
[19]
Adaptations
[
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]
Four of O'Hagan's books have received adaptations into different media. In 1996,
Channel 4
Television presented
Calling Bible John: Portrait of a Serial Killer
, nominated for a
BAFTA
award.
[2]
[20]
In 2009, his novel
Be Near Me
was adapted by
Ian McDiarmid
for the
Donmar Warehouse
and the
National Theatre of Scotland
.
In September 2011, the
National Theatre of Scotland
presented
The Missing
as a play adapted by O'Hagan and directed by
John Tiffany
at Tramway, Glasgow.
[21]
The play received favourable reviews.
The Daily Telegraph
called it "a profound act of mourning and memory."
[22]
The Guardian
called the work "an arresting, genre-defying work ? part speculative memoir, part Orwellian social reportage" that "induces the kind of shock he [the author] must have experienced..."
[23]
In December 2022
BBC One
showed an adaptation of
Mayflies
starring
Martin Compston
,
Tony Curran
, and
Ashley Jensen
.
[24]
Other activities
[
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]
In 2001, O'Hagan was named as a
Goodwill Ambassador
by the UK branch of
UNICEF
, and he has been involved in fundraising efforts for the organisation. He has travelled to Sudan, India, Malawi and Mozambique and has joined fellow ambassadors
Ewan McGregor
,
Ralph Fiennes
,
James Nesbitt
,
Martin Bell
and
Jemima Khan
in campaigning for
Unicef
.
[
citation needed
]
In August 2017, O'Hagan gave a speech at The
Edinburgh International Book Festival
, where he declared that he had become a supporter of
Scottish independence
.
[25]
As of September 2021
[update]
, O'Hagan has been a
visiting professor
of
creative writing
at
King's College London
.
[26]
[27]
In June 2023,
The Age
reported that the
FBI
is seeking to gather new evidence in the
Julian Assange
case, based on a request from the FBI to interview O'Hagan. O'Hagan refused the request, and said to the newspaper that "I would not give a witness statement against a fellow journalist being pursued for telling the truth. I would happily go to jail before agreeing in any way to support the American security establishment in this cynical effort."
[28]
Personal life
[
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]
O'Hagan has a daughter, whose mother is fellow author
India Knight
.
[29]
Recognition, awards and honours
[
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]
O'Hagan was selected by the literary magazine
Granta
[30]
for inclusion in their 2003 list of the top 20 young British novelists, and his novels have been translated into 15 languages.
[19]
Book awards
[
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]
Other honours and appointments
[
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]
Selected works
[
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]
Fiction books
[
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]
Non-fiction books
[
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]
- The Missing
, 1995
- The Atlantic Ocean: Essays
, 2008
- The Secret Life: Three True Stories of the Digital Age
, 2017
Other writings
[
edit
]
- Short stories:
online text
from
Sunday Times
, 7 December 2008
- As a ghostwriter:
Julian Assange: The Unauthorised Autobiography
, 2011
- Editing:
- New Writing 11
, 2002
- The Weekenders: Adventures in Calcutta
, 2004
- A Night Out with Robert Burns
, 2008
- Book Reviews:
- The Satoshi Affair: Andrew O’Hagan on the many lives of Satoshi Nakamoto
(2016, non-fiction)
[16]
- "Ghosting"
London Review of Books
, 6 March 2014
[11]
- The Tower
, a 60,000-word essay about the
Grenfell Tower fire
in
The London Review of Books
[35]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
c
"Andrew O'Hagan"
.
University of Strathclyde
. 27 June 2018
. Retrieved
26 September
2021
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
i
j
k
l
m
n
o
p
Patten, Eve; Woodward, Guy.
"Andrew O'Hagan"
.
British Council
. Retrieved
26 September
2021
.
[by] Dr Eve Patten, 2003 and Dr Guy Woodward, 2012
- ^
a
b
"Humanities English"
.
University of Strathclyde
. Retrieved
2 February
2018
.
- ^
a
b
Adams, Tim (30 August 2020).
"Andrew O'Hagan: 'If you are honest, you never stop being who you were'
"
.
The Guardian
. Retrieved
20 October
2020
.
- ^
London Review of Books
, Vol. 33 No. 12, 16 June 2011, pp. 23?28.
- ^
"E. M. Forster Award"
. Arts and Letters. Archived from
the original
on 6 November 2011
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
"Los Angeles Times - Festival of Books"
.
Festival of Books
. Archived from
the original
on 16 January 2016
. Retrieved
29 June
2016
.
- ^
Flood, Alison (1 December 2008).
"Scottish book of the year goes to Kieron Smith, Boy"
.
The Guardian
. London
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
"St Marilyn: the canonisation of Monroe"
.
The Guardian
. London. 16 January 2003.
- ^
Brown, Mark (16 March 2012).
"Scottish National Theatre to tackle 'crisis in newspaper journalism'
"
.
The Guardian
. London.
- ^
a
b
O'Hagan, Andrew (6 March 2014).
"Ghosting"
.
London Review of Books
.
36
(5): 5?26
. Retrieved
12 April
2019
.
- ^
Sawer, Patrick (22 February 2014).
"
'Paranoid, vain and jealous' ? the secret life of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange"
.
The Daily Telegraph
. London.
- ^
Smith, Lewis (22 February 2014).
"WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is a mad, sad and bada , claims ghostwriter Andrew Oa Hagan"
.
The Independent
. London.
Archived
from the original on 7 May 2022.
- ^
ANI (22 February 2014).
"Ghostwriter calls Assange 'mercurial character who could not bear his own secrets'
"
.
Business Standard
.
- ^
"Books beginning with ILLUMINATIONS-BY-ANDREW-O%E2%80%99HAGAN | the Booker Prizes"
.
- ^
a
b
Nakamoto, Andrew O’Hagan on the many lives of Satoshi (30 June 2016).
"The Satoshi Affair"
.
London Review of Books
.
38
(13): 7?28.
- ^
"There could be a lot of money in claiming to have invented Bitoin"
. Retrieved
28 June
2016
.
- ^
The Secret Life: Three True Stories of the Digital Age by Andrew O'Hagan
Retrieved 12 October 2017
- ^
a
b
"O'Hagan, Andrew"
. A. P. Watt. Archived from
the original
on 25 April 2012
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
"Calling Bible John Portrait of a Serial Killer"
. British Film Institute. Archived from
the original
on 23 January 2010
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
"The Missing"
. National Theatre of Scotland
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
Crompton, Sarah (19 September 2011).
"The Missing (Tramway review)"
.
The Daily Telegraph
. London
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
Hickling, Alfred (18 September 2011).
"The Missing ? review"
.
The Guardian
. London
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
"The BBC announces new Scottish drama Mayflies, starring Martin Compston, Tony Curran and Ashley Jensen"
.
BBC.co.uk
.
- ^
"How Andrew O'Hagan, one of Scotland's leading writers, went from No to Yes"
.
The National
. 16 August 2017
. Retrieved
24 August
2019
.
- ^
"Home page"
.
Andrew O'Hagan
. Retrieved
26 September
2021
.
- ^
"O'Hagan, Professor Andrew"
. King's College London. Archived from
the original
on 11 January 2012
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
Knott, Matthew (31 May 2023).
"FBI restarts Julian Assange probe despite hopes of release"
.
The Age
. Retrieved
2 June
2023
.
- ^
"Andrew O'Hagan sheds light on the home front and battle lines"
.
The Herald
. 7 February 2015.
- ^
"A 'Granta' Glimpse at Rising British Writers"
.
NPR
.
- ^
Pineda, Dorany (17 April 2021).
"Winners of the 2020 L.A. Times Book Prizes announced"
.
Los Angeles Times
. Retrieved
17 April
2021
.
- ^
"Governance"
. The Orwell Prize
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
"Royal Society of Literature All Fellows"
. Royal Society of Literature. Archived from
the original
on 5 March 2010
. Retrieved
10 August
2010
.
- ^
"Fiction Review: Run"
.
Publishers Weekly
. Retrieved
13 November
2011
.
- ^
O’Hagan, Andrew (7 June 2018).
"The Tower"
.
London Review of Books
.
40
(11)
. Retrieved
26 September
2021
.
Further reading
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]
External links
[
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]
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