Mark Haddon | |
---|---|
Born |
Northampton, England, United Kingdom |
26 September 1962
Occupation | Writer, illustrator |
Nationality | British |
Education | MA, English Literature |
Alma mater |
Merton College, Oxford Uppingham School |
Period | 1987–present (as writer) |
Genre | Novels, children's literature, poetry, screenplays, radio drama |
Literary movement | Postmodernism Transgressive |
Notable awards |
Whitbread Book of the Year 2003 Guardian Prize 2003 |
Spouse | Sos Eltis |
Website | |
markhaddon |
Mark Haddon (born 26 September 1962) is an English novelist, best known for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (2003). He won the Whitbread Award, Guardian Prize, and a Commonwealth Writers Prize for his work.
Haddon was born on 26 September 1962 in Northampton, England. He was educated at Uppingham School and Merton College, Oxford, where he studied English.
In 1987, Haddon wrote his first children’s book, Gilbert’s Gobstopper. This was followed by many other children’s books, which were often self-illustrated.
Haddon is also known for his series of Agent Z books, one of which, Agent Z and the Penguin from Mars, was made into a 1996 Children's BBC sitcom. He also wrote the screenplay for the BBC television adaptation of Raymond Briggs's story Fungus the Bogeyman, screened on BBC1 in 2004. In 2007 he wrote the BBC television drama Coming Down the Mountain.
In 2003, Haddon won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award—in the Novels rather than Children's Books category—for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. He also won the Commonwealth Writers Prize in the Best First Book category, as The Curious Incident was considered his first written for adults; yet he also won the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, a once-in-a-lifetime award judged by a panel of children's writers.