Peter Ackroyd

Peter Ackroyd

Peter Ackroyd (born October 5, 1949 in London ) is a British writer who is known for his novels and biographies.

Life

Peter Ackroyd was raised by his single mother in a council estate in East Acton, west London. The environment was strictly Catholic. His mother worked in the personnel office of a mechanical engineering company. His father left the family when Ackroyd was an infant. The boy was reading newspapers at the age of five. When he was seven he knew he was gay. At the age of nine he wrote a play about Guy Fawkes .

He was a student at the Catholic private school St Benedict's School in Ealing (London) . Ackroyd studied English literature at Clare College , Cambridge , where he made a Master of Arts in 1971 . In 1972 he studied at Yale University on a fellowship from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation .

The result of his fellowship at Yale University was "Notes for a New Culture", which Ackroyd wrote when he was only 22 years old, but which was not published until 1976. The title, an allusion to TS Eliot's Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1948), was an early sign of Ackroyd's inclination to research the London writer's works and to put them to the test.

After completing his studies, Peter Ackroyd initially worked as an editor from 1973 to 1982, and from 1978 co-editor-in-chief for the British magazine The Spectator . In 1984 he became a member of the Royal Society of Literature . He is currently the Times' chief literary critic and radio host.

Ackroyd had a long-term relationship with Brian Kuhn, an American dancer he met at Yale. After a nervous breakdown in the late 1980s, he moved to Devon with Kuhn . Shortly thereafter, Kuhn was diagnosed with AIDS ; he died in 1994; Ackroyd moved back to London. Ackroyd was known for excessive alcohol consumption. In 1999 he suffered a heart attack and was placed in an artificial coma for a week .

plant

Ackroyd's literary career began with poetry, including works such as "London Lickpenny" (1973) and "The Diversions of Purley" (1987). In 1982 he published his first novel "The Great Fire of London", a remake of Charles Dickens ' novel " Little Dorrit ". He founded a whole series of novels that deal in a complex way with time and space and with what Ackroyd calls the spirit of place. The turn to the novel came unexpectedly for him. In an interview with Patrick McGrath, Peter Ackroyd said:

“I enjoy it, I suppose, but I never thought I'd be a novelist. I never wanted to be a novelist. I can't bear fiction. I hate it. It's so untidy. When I was a young man I wanted to be a poet, then I wrote a critical book, and I don't think I even read a novel till I was about 26 or 27. ”

“I enjoy it, I suppose, but I never thought I'd become a novelist. I never wanted to be a novelist. I can't stand fiction. I hate it. It's so messy. When I was a young man I wanted to be a poet, then I wrote a critical book, and I don't think I ever read a novel until I was about 26 or 27. "

- BOMB Magazine

Ackroyd's works include both non-fiction (mainly about English cultural history, e.g. William Shakespeare ) and numerous novels, most of which are set in his hometown of London. Here, historical novels such as Das Haus des Magiers (original title: "The House of Doctor Dee"), but also a science fiction novel ( The Plato Papers , 1999) were created. In 1989 the novel The Clock in God's Hands ("First Light") was published.

libretto

Peter Ackroyd wrote the libretto for the opera A Harlot's Progress after William Hogarth (music: Iain Bell ), which was performed on October 13 at the Theater an der Wien with the soprano Diana Damrau in the title role under the musical direction of Mikko Franck and in the production was premiered by Jens-Daniel Herzog .

Awards

• 1984: Somerset Maugham Award for The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde. (German as "The Diary of Oscar Wilde")
• 1984: Royal Society of Literature's William Heinemann Award for TS Eliot. (Also in German under the same title.)
• 1984: Whitbread Award for Biography for TS Eliot.
• 1985: Whitbread Novel Award for Hawksmoor. (German as "Der Fall des Baumeister")
• 1985: Guardian Fiction Award for Hawksmoor.
• 1998: James Tait Black Memorial Prize for the biography Thomas More.
• 2001: South Bank Award for Literature for London: The Biography. (German as "London: Die Biographie.")
• 2003: Order of the British Empire (CBE) "For services to literature"
• 2006: Freeman of the City of London
• 2006: Admission to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as an honorary external member

bibliography

Poetry

• Ouch! (1971)
• London Lickpenny (1973)
• Country Life (1978)
• The Diversions of Purley and Other Poems (1987)

Fiction

• The Great Fire of London (1982)
• The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde (1983)
  • English: The Diary of Oscar Wilde. Translated by Melanie Walz. Knaus, Munich 1999, ISBN 978-3-8135-0103-2 .
• Hawksmoor (1985)
  • German: The fall of the builder. Translated by Hans Wolf. Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1988, ISBN 978-3-498-00024-0 .
• Chatterton (1987)
  • German: Chatterton. Hans Wolf. Translated by Bernd Rullkötter. Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1990, ISBN 978-3-498-00026-4 .
• First Light (1989)
  • English: The clock in God's hands. Translated by Bernd Rullkötter. Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1992, ISBN 978-3-498-00029-5 .
• English Music (1992)
• The House of Doctor Dee (1993)
  • English: The house of the magician. Translated by Sebastian Vogel. Goldmann # 72859, Munich 2002, ISBN 978-3-442-72859-6 .
• Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem (1994, also as The Trial of Elizabeth Cree )
  • English: The Golem of Limehouse. German by Bernd Rullkötter. Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1998, ISBN 978-3-498-00047-9 .
• Milton in America (1996)
• The Plato Papers (1999)
• The Mystery of Charles Dickens (2000)
• The Clerkenwell Tales (2003)
  • English: The Clerkenwell Tales. Translated by Eva L. Wahser. Knaus, Munich 2004, ISBN 978-3-8135-0241-1 .
• The Lambs of London (2004)
  • German: As we like it. Translated by Eva L. Wahser. Knaus, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-8135-0263-3 .
• The Fall of Troy (2006)
• The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein (2008)
• The Canterbury Tales - A Retelling (2009)
• The Death of King Arthur: The Immortal Legend - A Retelling (2010)
• Three Brothers (2013)

Non-fiction

• Notes for a New Culture: An Essay on Modernism (1976)
• Dressing Up: Transvestism and Drag, the History of an Obsession (1979)
• Ezra Pound and His World (1980)
• TS Eliot (1984)
  • German: TS Eliot: Eine Biographie. Translated by Wolfgang Held. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1988, ISBN 978-3-518-02276-4 .
• Dickens' London: An Imaginative Vision (1987)
• Ezra Pound and his World (1989) (1989)
• Dickens (1990)
• Introduction to Dickens (1991)
• Blake (1995)
  • English: William Blake: poet, painter, visionary. Translated by Thomas Eichhorn. Knaus, Munich 2001, ISBN 978-3-8135-0102-5 .
• The Life of Thomas More (1998)
• London: The Biography (2000)
  • German: London: The Biography. Translated by Holger Fliessbach. Knaus, Munich 2002, ISBN 978-3-8135-0189-6 .
• The Collection: Journalism, Reviews, Essays, Short Stories, Lectures (2001)
• Dickens: Public Life and Private Passion (2002)
• Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination (2002)
• Illustrated London (2003)
• Ancient Egypt (2004)
• Chaucer (2004)
• Shakespeare: The Biography (2005)
  • German: Shakespeare: Die Biographie. Translated by Michael Müller and Otto Lucian. Knaus, Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-8135-0274-9 .
• Turner Brief Lives (2005)
• Thames: Sacred River (2007)
  • English: The Thames: Biography of a River. Translated by Michael Müller. Knaus, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-8135-0316-6 .
• Coffee with Dickens (with Paul Schlicke) (2008)
• Newton (Penguin Classics' "Brief Lives" series) (2008)
• Poe: A Life Cut Short (2008)
• Venice: Pure City (2009)
  • German: Venice: The Biography. Translation and marginalia by Michael Müller. Knaus, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-8135-0374-6 .
• The English Ghost: Specters Through Time (2010)
• London Under (2011)
• The History of England, v.1 Foundation (2011)
• Wilkie Collins (2012)
• The History of England, v.2 Tudors (2012)
• The History of England, v.3 Civil War (2014, also as: Rebellion: The History of England from James I to the Glorious Revolution )
• Charlie Chaplin (2014)
• Alfred Hitchcock (2015)
• The History of England, v.4 Revolution (2016)
• Queer City (2017)
  • English: Queer London: From Antiquity to Today. Translated by Sophia Lindsey. Penguin Verlag, Munich 2018, ISBN 978-3-328-60065-7 .
• The History of England, v.5 Dominion (2018)

Voyages Through Time (youth books)

• The Beginning (2003, also as In the Beginning )
  • German: emergence of life. Translated by Ralf Kosma. Dorling Kindersley, Starnberg 2004, ISBN 978-3-8310-0559-8 .
• Escape From Earth (2004)
  • German: Journey into space. Translated by Werner Horwath. Dorling Kindersley, Starnberg 2004, ISBN 978-3-8310-0558-1 .
• Ancient Greece (2005)
  • German: Ancient Greece. Translated by Cornelia Panzacchi. Dorling Kindersley, Starnberg 2006, ISBN 978-3-8310-0901-5 .
• Ancient Rome (2005)
  • German: The ancient Rome. Translated by Angela Wagner. Dorling Kindersley, Starnberg 2006, ISBN 978-3-8310-0805-6 .
• Cities of Blood (2005)
  • German: Inca, Maya and Aztecs. Translated by Cornelia Panzacchi. Dorling Kindersley, Starnberg 2005, ISBN 978-3-8310-0740-0 .
• Kingdom of the Dead (2006)
  • German: Time of the Pharaohs. Translated by Angela Wagner. Dorling Kindersley, Starnberg 2005, ISBN 978-3-8310-0679-3 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Peter Ackroyd in the catalog of the German National Library
• Peter Ackroyd in the Internet Speculative Fiction Database (English)
• Works by and about Peter Ackroyd at Open Library
• About the author at Perlentaucher.de
• More comprehensive biography
• Audio Interview with Peter Ackroyd about Charles Dickens (approx. 29 minutes)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ BBC Radio 4 - Desert Island Discs, Peter Ackroyd. In: bbc.co.uk. Retrieved October 8, 2014 . 
2. ^ Definition of Peter Ackroyd in the Free Online Encyclopedia. In: encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com. Retrieved October 10, 2014 . 
3. ↑ Royal Society of Literature: "Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature" ( Memento of the original from July 7, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
4. ↑ Peter Ackroyd: 'Retire? Only if my arms are chopped off first '- Profiles - People - The Independent. In: independent.co.uk. July 12, 2009, accessed October 13, 2014 . 
5. ^ Andrew Anthony: The Observer Profile: Peter Ackroyd - Books - The Observer. In: theguardian.com. September 4, 2005, accessed October 13, 2014 . 
6. ↑ Patrick McGrath: Peter Ackroyd. In: bombmagazine.org. 1989, accessed October 10, 2014 . 
7. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original dated August 13, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
8. ↑ Annual figures for the awards mainly according to: British Council: "Peter Ackroyd - Prizes and awards" ( Memento of the original from August 5, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.