Darren Shan

Darren O'Shaughnessy (born 2 July 1972) is an Irish writer and novelist.

He is best known for his young adult fiction series The Saga of Darren Shan, The Demonata, and Zom-B, published under the pseudonym Darren Shan.

He received his primary education in Askeaton, and attended secondary school at Copsewood College, Pallaskenry, graduating in 1989.

He returned to London in 1990 to pursue a degree in Sociology and English from Roehampton Institute of Higher Education.

O'Shaughnessy bought his first typewriter when he was fourteen and wrote many short stories, comic scripts, and books that he never finished, many of which are unpublished.

O'Shaughnessy claims that most of these stories will never be published.

His first success came to him at age fifteen, when he was a runner-up in a TV script-writing competition for RTÉ in Ireland, with a dark comedy story entitled A Day in the Morgue.

After university, O'Shaughnessy worked in a TV cable company in Limerick for two years, before becoming a full-time writer at the age of 23.

O'Shaughnessy signed up with the Christopher Little Literary Agency in 1996 and they continued to represent him until Christopher Little's death in 2021.

He is now represented by the Curtis Brown Agency.

O'Shaughnessy continues to live in Pallaskenry in Limerick, Ireland with his wife Helen Basini, a freelance university lecturer and global aid specialist.

His breakthrough came with Ayuamarca, published in February 1999 by Orion Publishing Group under his full name.

The sequel, Hell's Horizon, was published in February 2000.

In January 2000, Shan released Cirque du Freak, the first book of The Saga of Darren Shan series in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

The series was a huge global success and by 2021 his books were on sale in 40 countries, in 32 languages, and had sold thirty million copies worldwide.

The former was adapted into a manga series from 2006 to 2009 as well as a live-action film in 2009, with a prequel series, The Saga of Larten Crepsley, being released from 2010 to 2012.

A short novel released for World Book Day in the UK in 2006.

Ayuamarca was re-released in March 2008 under the title Procession of the Dead and the pen-name D.B. Shan.

However, in March 2008, Ayuamarca was re-published as Procession of the Dead (with substantial changes) by the Voyager imprint of HarperCollins (O'Shaughnessy's children's publisher).

Hell's Horizon followed in March 2009, and the third in the trilogy, City of the Snakes in March 2010 (but this time under the name of Darren Shan).

Hell's Horizon was released in March 2009 and City of the Snakes was released in March 2010.

All three books are now also available in the US, as well as in several other countries.

On 12 October 2011, it was announced that O'Shaughnessy's next series for teenagers under the name of Darren Shan would focus on zombies, and that the title of the series was Zom-B.

There were twelve books in total.

The first book was released in the UK and USA in late September 2012, and the last book was released in April 2016.

In the past, O'Shaughnessy has also published novels for adults under the Darren Shan pseudonym, but since 2014 he has released his work for older readers under the name of Darren Dash.

O'Shaughnessy was born in St Thomas’ Hospital in London, opposite the Houses of Parliament.

At the age of three, he started school at English Martyrs' near the Elephant and Castle where he lived.

When he was six, he moved with his parents and younger brother, to Limerick in Ireland, where he has lived ever since.

On 23 September 2014, the couple celebrated the birth of their first child, Dante, named after the famous Italian author Dante Alighieri.

A short novel titled Zom-B Circus, set between Zom-B Gladiator and Zom-B Mission, was released on 27 April 2014.

This is officially book 6.5 in the series chronology.

Shan and his wife Helen welcomed their second child, a daughter named Gaia, on 26 March 2019.

This is a four-book series covering 200 years in the life of Larten Crepsley, a vampire first introduced to readers in The Saga of Darren Shan.

The City Trilogy was written for adult readers and was originally released under O'Shaughnessy's own name.

The third book was never published and the original versions are now out of print.

They were published by Orion Publishing Group.

O'Shaughnessy has published other children's books as Darren Shan, including Koyasan, and The Thin Executioner. From 2020 to 2022, he self-published his latest young adult series Archibald Lox.

On 1 April 2020, O'Shaughnessy announced that he had silently released three books digitally due to the COVID-19 pandemic, making up the first volume of the Archibald Lox series.

There were nine books released in total, making up three volumes when they were collected into omnibus editions.