Over the last fifteen years Sebastian Faulks has established himself as one of the most accomplished and successful authors in the UK.
Early Life
Sebastian Faulks was born on 20th April 1953 in Newbury, Berkshire. He was Cambridge educated, first at Wellington College and then Emmanuel, despite originally planning to pursue a career as a taxi-driver! He is the only member of the family on his father’s side not to enter the legal profession: instead, he became the first literary editor of The Independent. His next move was to The Independent on Sunday as deputy editor, before leaving journalism for a writing career in 1991, although he did continue to write newspaper columns both The Guardian and then for The Evening Standard throughout the nineties.
Early Novels and Birdsong
Faulks already had two published novels under his belt by the time he left The Independent on Sunday, with A Trick of the Light published in 1984 and The Girl at the Lion d’Or , which appeared in 1989. The latter of these was to prove important to Faulks’ literary career, set as it was in France between the First and the Second World Wars. This novel marked the first instalment in a trilogy of novels set in France – the second of which, Birdsong, perhaps remains Faulks’ best known and best loved work.
Birdsong, publishedin 1993, tells the story of Stephen Wraysford, a young Englishman fighting in northern France during the First World War. His experiences are interspersed with more modern interludes, as his granddaughter Elizabeth travels to France in the 1970s to find out more about Stephen’s life. This book caught the public’s imagination and became a best seller, reaching over 2 millions copies sold.
The French Trilogy
Charlotte Gray, published in 1993, completes the “French” trilogy, as the eponymous heroine, a young Scottish woman, becomes involved in the French resistance of The Second World War. Not as successful as its predecessor, this book is perhaps best known for being made into a film starring Cate Blanchett in 2002, and securing Faulks a Bad Sex Award from The Literary Review.
His next novel, On Green Dolphin Street (2001), was also set in wartime, but this time the action takes place during The Cold War. More recent novels have shown something of a departure for Faulks: Human Traces, published in 2005, is set in the 1800s and concerns itself with the setting up of a mental asylum, although the novel received criticism for its heavy use of medical details – said to be the product of over-researching on Faulks’ part.
Engleby... and James Bond
The critics were won over again by Engleby, set in Cambridge during the 1970s. Faulks claims to have thoroughly enjoyed writing this novel, focusing as it does on a character whose background is far more like his own than any of his other protagonists. The novel has been widely praised for its evocation of place and time, and for maintaining the sympathy and interest of the reader despite a fundamentally dislikeable narrator.
With his latest novel being a new James Bond novel, specially commissioned by the Ian Fleming Estate to mark the anniversary of the author’s birth in 1908, it is getting difficult to predict exactly what this versatile author will turn his hand to next.
Sebastian Faulks Bibliography
A Trick of the Light 1984
The Girl at the Lion d'Or 1989
A Fool's Alphabet 1992
Birdsong 1993
The Fatal Englishman: Three Short Lives 1996
Charlotte Gray 1998
The Vintage Book of War Stories (editor with Jorg Hensgen) 1999
On Green Dolphin Street 2001
Human Traces 2005
Pistache 2006
Engleby 2007
Devil May Care 2008
