Jonathan Self

Jonathan Otter Self (born 11 March 1959 in Hammersmith, London) is an English author and journalist. He began his career as an advertising copywriter and in 1982 founded Self Direct, a direct-marketing agency. He sold his business in 1993.

Self's father, the academic Peter Self, and his mother, Elaine Self, moved to England from the United States and worked in the publishing industry. His brother, Will Self, is a novelist and broadcaster. Both Self and his brother have described their parents' marriage as troubled.

Self has written for the British media including Country Life, The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The Mail on Sunday. In 2009 he collaborated with Arabella Lennox-Boyd on Welcome to Dream Acres, a Country Life series about landscape gardening.

Self-published an autobiography, Self Abuse, in 2001. The Times stated that Self "is a talented writer with an extraordinary family history to relate. He catalogues the failings of a family so dysfunctional and cruel that even with his talent for sardonic one-liners the tone is one of unrelenting despair." In a humour column of The Guardian, a one-line summary of the book states, "The brother of the more famous Will ODs in therapy and splurges the results over 247 pages".

In 1982 Self was briefly married to the artist Jo Self, the mother of his eldest son. After divorcing her, he had two sons with financial journalist Perrie Croshaw, then ended their domestic partnership. In 2009 he married Marianne van Pelt, an American equestrienne and journalist. Their marriage celebration included a ceremony in Grand Central Terminal at the spot where they first met in person. They lived in Connecticut and upstate New York before moving to County Cork, Ireland. He divorced her in 2013 and moved to Malta, while she continued to reside, write, and ride in Ireland.

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