Alan Hollinghurst

Alan James Hollinghurst (born 26 May 1954) is an English novelist, poet, short story writer and translator.

In the late 1970s he lectured at Magdalen, then at Somerville and Corpus Christi.

He studied English at Magdalen College, Oxford, receiving a BA in 1975 and MLitt in 1979.

His thesis was on works by three gay writers: Firbank, Forster and Hartley.

He house-shared with future poet laureate Andrew Motion at Oxford, and was awarded poetry's Newdigate Prize, a year before Motion.

In 1981 he lectured at UCL, and in 1982 joined The Times Literary Supplement, serving as deputy editor, 1985–90.

Hollinghurst is credited with having helped gay-themed fiction to break into the literary mainstream through his six novels since 1988.

Hollinghurst was born in Stroud, Gloucestershire, only child of bank manager James Hollinghurst, who served in the RAF in the Second World War, and his wife, Elizabeth.

He attended Dorset's Canford School.

He won the 1989 Somerset Maugham Award, the 1994 James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and for his novel The Line of Beauty the 2004 Booker Prize.

Hollinghurst discussed his early life and literary influences at length in a rare interview at home in London, published in The James White Review in 1997–98.

He won the 2004 Booker Prize for The Line of Beauty.

His next novel, The Stranger's Child, made the 2011 Booker Prize longlist.

Hollinghurst is gay and lives in London.

Although he now lives with his partner Paul Mendez, Hollinghurst previously said: "I'm not at all easy to live with. I wish I could integrate writing into ordinary social life, but I don't seem to be able to. I could when I started [writing]. I suppose I had more energy then. Now I have to isolate myself for long periods."