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Edit] Life and career

Philip Pullman

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Philip Pullman
Pullman in April 2005
Born (1946-10-19) 19 October 1946 (age 65) Norwich, Norfolk, England
Occupation Novelist
Education English literature
Alma mater Exeter College, Oxford
Genres Fantasy
Notable work(s) His Dark Materials series The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ
Notable award(s) Carnegie Medal 1995
Influences[show] · John Milton, William Blake
Influenced[show] · Christopher Paolini
www.philip-pullman.com

Philip Pullman CBE, FRSL (born 19 October 1946) is an English writer from Norwich. He is the author of several best-selling books, most notably the fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials and the fictionalised biography of Jesus, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ. In 2008, The Times named Pullman one of the "50 greatest British writers since 1945".[1]

The first book of His Dark Materials (Northern Lights) won the 1995 Carnegie Medal in Literature from the Library Association, recognising the year's outstanding children's book by a British subject.[2] For the 70th anniversary of the Medal it was named one of the top ten winning works by a panel, composing the ballot for a public election of the all-time favourite.[3] Northern Lights won the public vote from that shortlist and was thus named the all-time "Carnegie of Carnegies" on 21 June 2007. It has been adapted as a film under its U.S. title, The Golden Compass.

Contents [hide]
  • 1 Life and career
  • 2 His Dark Materials
  • 3 Perspective on religion
  • 4 Screen adaptations
  • 5 Works
    • 5.1 Non-series books
    • 5.2 Sally Lockhart
    • 5.3 The New-Cut Gang
    • 5.4 His Dark Materials
      • 5.4.1 Companion books
    • 5.5 Plays
    • 5.6 Non-fiction
    • 5.7 Comics
  • 6 References
  • 7 Further reading
  • 8 External links

edit] Life and career

Philip Pullman was born in Norwich, England, the son of Audrey Evelyn Pullman (née Merrifield) and Royal Air Force pilot Alfred Outram Pullman. The family travelled with his father's job, including to Southern Rhodesia where he spent time at school.

His father was killed in a plane crash in 1953 when Pullman was seven, being awarded posthumously the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC). Pullman said at the beginning of a 2008 exchange that to him as a boy, his father "was a hero, steeped in glamour, killed in action defending his country" and had been "training pilots, I think." Pullman was then presented with a report from The London Gazette of 1954 "which carried the official RAF news of the day [and] said that the medal was given for 'gallant and distinguished service' during the Mau Mau uprising. 'The main task of the Harvards [the squadron of planes led by his father] has been bombing and machine-gunning Mau Mau and their hideouts in densely wooded and difficult country.' This included 'diving steeply into the gorges of [various] rivers, often in conditions of low cloud and driving rain.' Testing conditions, yes, but not much opposition from the enemy, the journalist in the exchange continued. Very few of the Mau Mau had guns that could land a blow on an aircraft." Pullman responded to this new information, writing "my father probably doesn't come out of this with very much credit, judged by the standards of modern liberal progressive thought" and accepted the new information as "a serious challenge to his childhood memory."[4]



His mother remarried and, with a move to Australia, came Pullman's discovery of comic books including Superman and Batman, a medium which he continues to espouse. From 1957 he was educated at Ysgol Ardudwy in Harlech, Gwynedd, and spent time in Norfolk with his grandfather, a clergyman. Around this time Pullman discovered John Milton's Paradise Lost, which would become a major influence for His Dark Materials.

From 1963, Pullman attended Exeter College, Oxford, receiving a Third class BA in 1968.[5] In an interview with the Oxford Student he stated that he "did not really enjoy the English course" and that "I thought I was doing quite well until I came out with my third class degree and then I realised that I wasn’t — it was the year they stopped giving fourth class degrees otherwise I’d have got one of those".[6] He discovered William Blake's illustrations around 1970, which would also later influence him greatly.

Pullman married Judith Speller in 1970 and began teaching middle school children ages 9 to 13 at Bishop Kirk Middle School in Summertown, North Oxford and writing school plays. His first published work was The Haunted Storm, which joint-won the New English Library's Young Writer's Award in 1972. He nevertheless refuses to discuss it. Galatea, an adult fantasy-fiction novel, followed in 1978, but it was his school plays which inspired his first children's book, Count Karlstein, in 1982. He stopped teaching around the publication of The Ruby in the Smoke (1986), his second children's book, whose Victorian setting is indicative of Pullman's interest in that era.

Pullman taught part-time at Westminster College, Oxford, between 1988 and 1996, continuing to write children's stories. He began His Dark Materials in about 1993. Northern Lights (published as The Golden Compass in the US) was published in 1995 and won the Carnegie Medal, one of the most prestigious British children's fiction awards, and the Guardian Children's Fiction Award.

Pullman has been writing full-time since 1996, but continues to deliver talks and writes occasionally for The Guardian. He was awarded a CBE in the New Year's Honours list in 2004. He also co-judged the prestigious Christopher Tower Poetry Prize (awarded by Oxford University) in 2005 with Gillian Clarke. Pullman also began lecturing at a seminar in English at his alma mater, Exeter College, Oxford, in 2004,[7][8] the same year that he was elected President of the Blake Society.[9] In 2004 Pullman also guest-edited The Mays Anthology, a collection of new writing from students at the University of Oxford and University of Cambridge.

In 2005, he was awarded The Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award by the Swedish Arts Council.

In 2008, he started working on The Book of Dust, a sequel to his completed His Dark Materials trilogy, and "The Adventures of John Blake", a story for the British children's comic The DFC, with artist John Aggs.[10][11][12]

On 23 November 2007, Pullman was made an honorary professor at Bangor University.[13] In June 2008, he became a Fellow supporting the MA in Creative Writing at Oxford Brookes University.[14] In September 2008, he hosted "The Writer's Table" for Waterstone's bookshop chain, highlighting 40 books which have influenced his career.[15] In October 2009, he became a patron of the Palestine Festival of Literature.

Pullman has a strong commitment to traditional British civil liberties and is noted for his criticism of growing state authority and government encroachment into everyday life. In February 2009, he was the keynote speaker at the Convention on Modern Liberty in London[16] and wrote an extended piece in The Times condemning the Labour government for its attacks on basic civil rights.[17] Later, he and other authors threatened to stop visiting schools in protest at new laws requiring them to be vetted to work with youngsters—though officials claimed that the laws had been misinterpreted.[18] In 2010, Pullman left the Liberal Democrats, the party he supported.[19]

On 24 June 2009, Pullman was awarded the degree of D. Litt. (Doctor of Letters), honoris causa, by the University of Oxford at the Encænia ceremony in the Sheldonian Theatre.[20]


Date: 2016-01-03; view: 670


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