Will Self

William Self (born September 26, 1961) is an English novelist, reviewer and columnist. He received his education at University College School, Christ's College Finchley, and Exeter College, Oxford. He is married to journalist Deborah Orr. Photograph of Will Self taken at Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, October 2002. ... September 26 is the 269th day of the year (270th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1961 (MCMLXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (the link is to a full 1961 calendar). ... University College School, known generally as UCS, is a British independent school situated in Hampstead, north west London. ... Christs College is a secondary school in East Finchley, London, United Kingdom. ... College name Exeter College Latin name Collegium Exoniense Named after Walter de Stapledon, Bishop of Exeter Established 1314 Sister college Emmanuel College, Cambridge Rector Ms Frances Cairncross JCR President Simon Heawood Undergraduates 299 MCR President Meredith Riedel Graduates 150 Location of Exeter College within central Oxford , Homepage Boatclub Exeter College... Deborah Orr is a British journalist and broadcaster. ...

Self is known for his satirical, grotesque and fantastic novels and short stories set in seemingly parallel universes.

Life

Highly articulate, Will Self has made several appearances on British television, notably as a contestant on Have I Got News for You (to date he has made eight guest appearances, a record jointly held with Germaine Greer) and as a regular on Shooting Stars and Grumpy Old Men as well as an appearance on Room 101. He gained a degree of infamy in 1997 when he was sent by the British broadsheet The Observer to cover the electoral campaign of John Major, and was subsequently fired from the newspaper after taking heroin on the Prime Minister's jet.^[1] This article or section is not written in the formal tone expected of an encyclopedia article. ... Germaine Greer (born January 29, 1939) is a writer, broadcaster and retired academic, who is widely regarded as one of the most significant feminist voices of the 20th century. ... Shooting Stars is a UK television comedy panel game broadcast on BBC Two. ... Grumpy Old Men is a conversational-style television programme on BBC2 which debuted in 2003. ... This page is about the TV series Room 101. ... Newspaper sizes in August 2005. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... Sir John Major, KG, CH, PC (born 29 March 1943) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and leader of the British Conservative Party from 1990 to 1997. ... Heroin ((INN) Diacetylmorphine, (BAN) diamorphine) is a semi-synthetic opioid. ...

His Psychogeography column appears in the magazine section of the Saturday edition of The Independent. He has also written for the New Statesman and Prospect magazine. Psychogeography is The study of specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organised or not, on the emotions and behaviour of individuals, according to the article Preliminary Problems in Constructing a Situation, in (1958) . // Development Psychogeography was originally developed by the Lettrist International, as a hypergraphics in their system of... The Independent is a British compact newspaper published by Tony OReillys Independent News & Media. ... The New Statesman is a left-of-centre political weekly published in London. ... Prospect logo Prospect is a liberal monthly British essay and comment magazine covering a wide range of topics, but specialising in politics and current affairs. ...

He currently lives in Vauxhall, South London^{[citation needed]}. Vauxhall is an inner city area of south London in the London Borough of Lambeth. ... South London area South London (known colloquially as South of the River) is the area of London south of the River Thames. ...

Literary style

Like Salman Rushdie, Will Self loads his fiction with references and allusions to modern culture (both high and low) and like Rushdie he is probably the only person able to recognise them all. The influences on his fiction mentioned most frequently include J.G. Ballard, William Burroughs and Hunter S. Thompson often not for purely literary reasons. Alongside these he has cited such diverse writers as Jonathan Swift, Alasdair Gray, Franz Kafka, Lewis Carroll, Joseph Heller and Louis-Ferdinand Celine as formative influences on his writing style. Martin Amis is often mentioned alongside Self; Self went to interview him but they ended up having more of a discussion about each other's work and lives — it is known that they have tremendous respect for each other. This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... James Graham Ballard (born November 18, 1930 in Shanghai) is a British novelist. ... William S. Burroughs. ... Hunter Stockton Thompson (July 18, 1937 – February 20, 2005) was an American journalist and author. ... Jonathan Swift Jonathan Swift (November 30, 1667 – October 19, 1745) was an Irish cleric, satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer( first for Whigs then for Tories), and poet, famous for works like Gullivers Travels, A Modest Proposal, A Journal to Stella, The Drapiers Letters, The Battle of the Books, and... Alasdair Gray (born December 28, 1934) is a Scottish writer and artist. ... Kafka at the age of five Franz Kafka (IPA: ) (July 3, 1883 – June 3, 1924) was one of the major German-language fiction writers of the 20th century. ... Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) - believed to be a self-portrait Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (January 27, 1832 – January 14, 1898), better known by the pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican clergyman, and photographer. ... Joseph Heller (May 1, 1923 – December 12, 1999) was an American satirist author. ... line Louis-Ferdinand Destouches as C line (May 27, 1894 - July 1, 1961) was a French writer, physician and nihilist. ... Photo of Martin Amis by Robert Birnbaum Martin Amis (born August 25, 1949) is an English novelist. ...

Works

Fiction

• Cock and Bull (1992) — the stories of a man and a woman who develop sexual organs of the opposite sex.
• My Idea of Fun (1993) — a lonely boy grows up just outside Brighton in a caravan park with his over-sexual mother and Samuel Northcliff who takes the boy on a disturbing and often violent journey.
• Great Apes (1997) — a man wakes up in a world where chimpanzees evolved to be the species with self-awareness, while humans are the equivalent of chimps in our world.
• How the Dead Live (2000) — an old lady dies, only to be moved to a London suburb where the dead have taken residence.
• Dorian, an Imitation (2002) — a modern take on Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray.
• The Book of Dave (2006) — Set in 2003, against a backdrop of Fathers for Justice protests, it is the story of a London cab driver who suffers a mental breakdown due to failed relationships, estrangement from his son and an obsession with The Knowledge. He writes a book of rantings which he buries, which is discovered 500 years later and used as the sacred text for a religion that has taken hold in the flooded remnants of London.

Among the first of the Selfian fictions, these twin novellas are typically amusing pastiches of all things bourgeoise, and in particular all things psychoanalytical. ... Brighton is located on the south coast of England, and together with its immediate neighbour Hove forms the city of Brighton and Hove. ... Type species Simia troglodytes Blumenbach, 1775 distribution of Species Pan troglodytes Pan paniscus Chimpanzee, often shortened to chimp, is the common name for the two extant species in the genus Pan. ... This article is about the capital of England and the United Kingdom. ... Oscar Fingal OFlahertie Wills Wilde (October 16, 1854 – November 30, 1900) was an Irish playwright, novelist, poet, and short story writer. ... The Picture of Dorian Gray is the only novel published by Oscar Wilde, and was first published as the lead story in Lippincotts Monthly Magazine on 20 June 1890. ... The Book of Dave is a 2006 book written by English novelist Will Self. ... Fathers 4 Justice Logo Fathers 4 Justice (or F4J) began as a fathers’ rights organization in the United Kingdom. ... Please wikify (format) this article or section as suggested in the Guide to layout and the Manual of Style. ...

Short fiction

• The Quantity Theory of Insanity (short stories) 1991
• Grey Area (short stories) 1994
• The Sweet Smell of Psychosis (illustrated novella) 1996
• Tough, Tough Toys for Tough, Tough Boys (short stories) 1998
• Dr. Mukti and Other Tales of Woe (short stories) 2004

Non-fiction

Self has also compiled several books of work from his newspaper and magazine columns which mix interviews with counter-culture figures, restaurant reviews and literary criticism.

• Junk Mail (1996)
• Sore Sites (2000)
• Feeding Frenzy (2001)

Narration

"5ml. Barrel" Bomb the Bass album Clear.

Awards

• 1998: Aga Khan Prize for Fiction from The Paris Review for Tough Tough Toys for Tough Tough Boys
• 1991: Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize for "The Quantity Theory of Insanity"

See also: 1997 in literature, other events of 1998, 1999 in literature, list of years in literature. ... The Aga Khan Prize for Fiction is awarded by the editors of The Paris Review for what they deem to be the best short story published in the magazine in a given year. ... The Paris Review is a literary magazine started in 1953 by Peter Matthiessen, Thomas H. Guinzburg, and Harold L. Humes, and edited until his death in 2003 by George Plimpton. ... See also: 1990 in literature, other events of 1991, 1992 in literature, list of years in literature. ...

Quotes

"All my work is highly personal; it's more personal than me. You know, reading my books is having a far more intimate relationship with me than having a relationship with me."

"I want to be misunderstood. And the other thing that amuses me is: I don't particularly want to be liked. Nobody goes into the business of writing satire to be liked. Whether I am or am not a nice bloke is neither here nor there. It's not part of the task I've set myself in my art."

Trivia

• Will Self used to be addicted to heroin, but has abstained from all drugs except coffee and tobacco since 1998. He now goes on very long hikes from and around London, sometimes as long as 100 miles. In December 2006, while traveling in New York, he walked 26 miles from Kennedy Airport to the Crowne Plaza in Manhattan [1].

Heroin ((INN) Diacetylmorphine, (BAN) diamorphine) is a semi-synthetic opioid. ... This article is about the capital of England and the United Kingdom. ... This does not cite its references or sources. ... For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ... NY redirects here. ... John F. Kennedy International Airport (IATA: JFK, ICAO: KJFK), originally known as Idlewild Airport, is an international airport located in Jamaica, Queens, in southeastern New York City about 12 miles (19 km) from Lower Manhattan. ... Manhattan is a borough of New York City, USA, coterminous with New York County. ...

References

1. ^ Wroe, Nicholas. "Addicted to transmogrification", The Guardian, 2001-06-02. Retrieved on 2007-02-09. 

2001 (MMI) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar. ... June 2 is the 153rd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (154th in leap years), with 212 days remaining. ... 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the Anno Domini (common) era. ... February 9 is the 40th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ...

External links

• Official Will Self site
• Will Self at www.contemporarywriters.com
• Guardian Books author page: Will Self
• Will Self article in Issue 08 of TATE ETC. magazine
• The Sweet Smell of Excess: Will Self, Bataille and Transgression (An essay examining Self's work and parallels with Georges Bataille.)
• A short interview: BBC
• Interview: Spike Magazine
• Audio Interview (available in Real Audio or mp3): Salon.com
• Self interviewed by the International Necronautical Society (see also INS)
• Transcript of Self's encounter with Richard Littlejohn interviewed on Radio Five Live by Nicky Clark: BBC