32-467: Jonathan Coe FRSL ( / k oʊ / ; born 19 August 1961) is an English novelist and writer. His work has an underlying preoccupation with political issues, although this serious engagement is often expressed comically in the form of satire . For example, What a Carve Up! (1994) reworks the plot of an old 1960s spoof horror film of the same name . It is set within the "carve up" of the UK's resources that
64-403: A record label as a performer before becoming a published novelist. He had to wait until 2001 to make his first appearance on a record with 9th & 13th (Tricatel, 2001), a collection of readings of his work, set to music by jazz pianist/double bass player Danny Manners and indiepop artist Louis Philippe . Coe is a lifelong fan of Canterbury progressive rock . His novel The Rotters' Club
96-487: A series of major new initiatives and 60 new appointments championing the great diversity of writing and writers in the UK". Initiatives included RSL Open (electing new Fellows from communities, backgrounds and experiences currently under-represented in UK literary culture), RSL International Writers (recognising the contribution of writers across the globe to literature in English) and Sky Arts RSL Writers Awards. In 2021,
128-542: A significant contribution to the advancement of literature, including publishers, agents, librarians, booksellers or producers, or who have rendered special service to the RSL. Paid membership is open to all and offers a variety of benefits. The society publishes an annual magazine, The Royal Society of Literature Review , and administers a number of literary prizes and awards, including the RSL Ondaatje Prize ,
160-539: A suite of piano pieces to accompany readings from the novel The Rain Before It Falls . Coe has also performed live with flautist Theo Travis . Coe wrote the sleevenotes "Reflections on The High Llamas" for the 2003 compilation of The High Llamas Retrospective, Rarities and Instrumentals . He has also written lyrics for songs on the albums My Favourite Part of You and The Wonder of It All by Louis Philippe , and Earth to Ether by Theo Travis, for which
192-401: A theme, and to find books from the stockroom to set up in the shop's window. Coe chose satire as the theme for his display. He chose books by or about Michael Moore , Bill Hicks , Peter Cook and Steve Bell . He also unearthed a script of Terry Gilliam ’s film Brazil . Coe donated a story to Oxfam 's " Ox-Tales " project, four collections of UK stories written by 38 authors. Coe's story
224-557: Is named after an album by Hatfield and the North . He has contributed to the liner notes for that band's archival release Hatwise Choice . He once said: "I'd love to find a pianist to collaborate with – maybe Alex Maguire, who is now playing with the reformed line-up of Hatfield and the North". In fact, this collaboration did come to fruition, at the Cheltenham Literature Festival in 2009, where Maguire performed
256-463: The Benson Medal for lifetime service in the field of literature . The RSL runs a membership programme offering a variety of events to members and the general public. Membership of the RSL is open to all. The RSL also runs an outreach programme, currently for young people and those in prison. The RSL administers two annual prizes, two awards, and two honours. Through its prize programmes,
288-741: The Caravan album In the Land of Grey and Pink , along with the musician/novelist Wesley Stace and his band The English UK. Coe married Janine McKeown in 1989, and they have two daughters born in 1997 and 2000. In 2009, Coe took part in Oxfam 's first annual book festival, "Bookfest". Along with William Sutcliffe , Coe volunteered for the Oxfam Bloomsbury Bookshop in London on Thursday 9 July. Coe and Sutcliffe were each asked to choose
320-670: The European Book Prize and also won the Costa Book Award in the Novel category. Both What a Carve Up! (1994) and The Rotters' Club (2001) have been adapted as drama serials for BBC Radio 4 . What a Carve Up! was adapted by David Nobbs . The Rotters' Club was adapted for television by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais and broadcast on BBC Two in January–February 2005. The Dwarves of Death (1990)
352-754: The Samuel Johnson Prize in 2005. Also in 2005 Penguin published his "collected shorter prose", a volume consisting of only 55 pages, under the title 9th & 13th . The same collection was published in France in 2012 under the title Désaccords imparfaits . He has written a short children's adaptation of Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift , and a children's story called The Broken Mirror . Both titles are published in Italy only, as La storia di Gulliver (2011) and Lo specchio dei desideri (2012). A handwritten manuscript page from The Rotters' Club
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#1732782686860384-576: The RSL Giles St Aubyn Awards for Non-Fiction, the RSL Encore Award for best second novel of the year and the V. S. Pritchett Memorial Prize for short stories. In 2000, the RSL published a volume that provides a description and history of the society, written by one of its fellows, Isabel Quigly . In 2020, the RSL celebrated its 200th anniversary with the announcement of RSL 200, "a five-year festival launched with
416-554: The RSL Council responsible for its direction and management, being drawn from the Fellowship. As an independent charity, the RSL receives no regular public or government funding, relying on the support of its Members, Patrons, Fellows and friends to continue its work. The RSL has about 600 Fellows, elected from among the best writers in any genre currently at work. Additionally, Honorary Fellows are chosen from those who have made
448-1038: The RSL launched "Literature Matters: Reading Together", a project aiming to make recreational reading accessible to young people across the UK. The society maintains its current level of about 600 Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature : generally 14 new fellows are elected annually, who are accorded the privilege of using the post-nominal letters FRSL. Past and present fellows include Samuel Taylor Coleridge , J. R. R. Tolkien , W. B. Yeats , Rudyard Kipling , Thomas Hardy , George Bernard Shaw , Arthur Koestler , Chinua Achebe , Ruth Prawer Jhabvala , Robert Ardrey , Sybille Bedford , Muriel Spark , P. J. Kavanagh , Hilary Mantel , and Sir Roger Scruton . Present Fellows include Margaret Atwood , Bernardine Evaristo , David Hare , Kazuo Ishiguro , Andrew Motion , Paul Muldoon , Zadie Smith , Nadeem Aslam , Sarah Waters , Geoffrey Ashe , J. K. Rowling , and Nick Cave . A newly created fellow inscribes his or her name on
480-473: The RSL roll book. The RSL's 2022–23 Open initiative aimed to recognise writers from backgrounds currently underrepresented in UK literary culture by electing 60 fellows over a two-year period from communities, backgrounds and experiences currently under-represented in UK literary culture, through drawing on a broad range of writers from "different parts of the UK, from different communities, different demographics", as Bernardine Evaristo noted. The * before
512-422: The RSL supports new and established contemporary writers. The Council of the Royal Society of Literature is central to the election of new fellows, and directs the RSL's activities through its monthly meetings. Council members serve for a fixed term of four years, with new members being elected by Council when members retire. The Royal Society of Literature comprises more than 600 Fellows, who are entitled to use
544-571: The kingdom of Redonda . He chose as his title "Duke of Prunes", after a favourite piece of music by Frank Zappa . Coe read an excerpt of The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim to crowds at the Latitude Festival in July 2009. The central character was to be "a product of the social media boom", and "the sort of person with hundreds of Facebook friends but no one to talk to when his marriage breaks up." Coe's 2019 book Middle England won
576-604: The mid-1980s he played with a band (The Peer Group) and tried to get a recording of his music. He also wrote songs and played keyboards for a short-lived feminist cabaret group, Wanda and the Willy Warmers. He published his first novel, The Accidental Woman , in 1987. In 1994 his fourth novel What a Carve Up! won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize , and the Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger in France. It
608-500: The name denotes an Honorary Fellow. The list is online at the RSL website. The RSL International Writers programme is a new life-long honour and award recognizing the contribution of writers across the globe to literature in English, and the power of literature to transcend borders in bringing people together, the inaugural list of recipients being announced in 2021. David Nobbs Too Many Requests If you report this error to
640-553: The post-nominal letters FRSL . New fellows of the Royal Society of Literature are elected by its current fellows. To be nominated for fellowship, a writer must have published two works of literary merit, and nominations must be seconded by an RSL fellow. All nominations are presented to members of the Council of the Royal Society of Literature, who vote biannually to elect new fellows. Nominated candidates who have not been successful are reconsidered at every election for three years from
672-428: The society's official roll using either Byron's pen, T. S. Eliot 's fountain pen , which replaced Dickens 's quill in 2013, or (as of 2018) George Eliot 's pen, with pens belonging to Jean Rhys and Andrea Levy being additional choices from 2020. From time to time, the RSL confers the honour and title of Companion of Literature to writers of particular note. Additionally, the RSL can bestow its award of
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#1732782686860704-672: The vocalist was Richard Sinclair . In 2008 Coe wrote Say Hi to the Rivers and the Mountains , a 60-minute piece of what he calls "spoken musical theatre", with dialogue to be delivered continuously by three actors over a sequence of songs and instrumentals by The High Llamas. The work was premiered at the Analog Festival in Dublin that summer, and subsequently performed at various venues in the UK and Spain. The most recent performance
736-432: The voice of literature in the UK, the RSL has about 600 Fellows, elected from among the best writers in any genre currently at work. Additionally, Honorary Fellows are chosen from those who have made a significant contribution to the advancement of literature, including publishers, agents, librarians, booksellers or producers. The society is a cultural tenant at London's Somerset House . The Royal Society of Literature (RSL)
768-532: The year in which they were proposed. Newly elected fellows are introduced at the Society's AGM and summer party. While the President reads a citation for each, they are invited to sign their names in the roll book which dates back to 1820, using either T. S. Eliot 's fountain pen or Byron 's pen. In 2013, Charles Dickens ' quill was retired and replaced with Eliot's fountain pen, and in 2018 George Eliot 's pen
800-698: Was as part of the Notes and Letters Festival at Kings Place in London in September 2011, with Henry Goodman in the leading role of Bobby. The piece is inspired by the proposed demolition of Robin Hood Gardens , an East London council estate designed by Alison and Peter Smithson . In March 2011, at the City Winery in New York, Coe took the keyboard solos on a live version of "Nigel Blows A Tune" from
832-616: Was carried out by Margaret Thatcher 's Conservative governments of the 1980s. Coe was born in Bromsgrove , Worcestershire, on 19 August 1961 to Roger and Janet (née Kay) Coe. He studied at King Edward's School, Birmingham , and Trinity College, Cambridge . He taught at the University of Warwick , where he completed an MA and PhD in English Literature. Coe has long been interested in both music and literature. In
864-669: Was displayed as part of the "Writing Britain: Wastelands to Wonderlands" exhibition that ran at the British Library during 2012. Coe was a judge for the Booker Prize in 1996 and has been a jury member at the Venice Film Festival (in 1999, under the chairmanship of Emir Kusturica ) and the Edinburgh Film Festival in 2007. In 2012 Coe was invited by Javier Marías to become a duke of
896-451: Was filmed as Five Seconds to Spare in 1999, for which Coe himself co-wrote the screenplay. The Very Private Life of Mister Sim , a French film based on The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim , directed by Michel Leclerc and produced by Delante Cinema and Kare Productions, was released on 16 December 2015. Music is a constant thread in Coe's work. He played music for years and tried to find
928-641: Was followed by The House of Sleep , which won the Writers' Guild of Great Britain Best Novel award and, in France, the Prix Médicis . As of 2022, Coe has published fourteen novels. Besides novels, Coe has written a biography of the experimental British novelist B. S. Johnson , Like a Fiery Elephant , which D. J. Taylor described in Literary Review as "a deeply unconventional biography," won
960-447: Was founded in 1820, with the patronage of George IV , to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent", and its first president was Thomas Burgess , Bishop of St David's (who was later translated as Bishop of Salisbury ). As of 2018, the RSL's patron is Queen Camilla , who took over in the role from Elizabeth II . At the heart of the RSL is its Fellowship, "which encompasses the most distinguished writers working today", with
992-404: Was offered as a choice, the first time in the RSL's history that a pen that belonged to a woman writer was an option. In 2018, the RSL honoured the achievements of Britain's younger writers through the initiative "40 Under 40", which saw the election of 40 new fellows aged under 40. In 2020, pens belonging to Andrea Levy and Jean Rhys were added to the choices offered to fellows for signing
Jonathan Coe - Misplaced Pages Continue
1024-513: Was published in the Earth collection. He is a trustee of the charity Cleared Ground Demining, and in spring 2007 visited Guinea-Bissau to write an article about their operations there. In a 2001 newspaper interview, Coe described himself as an atheist . FRSL The Royal Society of Literature ( RSL ) is a learned society founded in 1820 by King George IV to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents
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