Patrick Neate

Patrick Neate (born 1970) is a British novelist, journalist, poet, screenwriter and podcaster.

Born and raised as a Roman Catholic in South London, he was educated at St. Paul's School and Cambridge University. He spent a gap year in Zimbabwe and has since returned to Africa on many occasions. He drew on the gap year experience in Musungu Jim and the Great Chief Tuloko.

His books to date, in order of publication, include Musungu Jim, Twelve Bar Blues, London Pigeon Wars, Where You're At, City of Tiny Lights, Culture is Our Weapon, and Jerusalem.

Musungu Jim, Twelve Bar Blues and Jerusalem are a trilogy in that the characters of Jim and Musa Musa are found in all three novels. However, each stands alone.

In each, he takes a foreign culture and explores the nature of story and the power of stories to create identities. At its best, his writing is lyrical about the nature of humanity, and yet still sufficiently entertaining to count as an "easy read." Musungu Jim envisages a coup triggered off by a hapless gap year student in an African dictatorship not unlike Mugabe's Zimbabwe. Twelve Bar Blues interweaves various characters but focusses chiefly on Lick Holden, a semi-mythical horn player, not unlike the legendary Buddy Bolden.

In The London Pigeon Wars, he attempted to talk about his own milieu, London, but the twist comes through the fact that part of the narrative is focalised through the pigeons who are at war in the area. Thematically, it tackles the dangers of consumerism.

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