Francis Spufford

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Francis Spufford

FRSL
Spufford in 2024
Spufford in 2024
Born1964 (age 61–62)
Occupation
  • novelist
  • non-fiction writer
PeriodSince 1989
Notable worksGolden Hill
Website
www.gold.ac.uk/ecw/staff/f-spufford/

Francis Spufford FRSL (born 1964)[1] is an English author and teacher of writing whose career has shifted gradually from non-fiction to fiction. His first novel Golden Hill received critical acclaim and numerous prizes including the Costa Book Award for a first novel,[2] the Desmond Elliott Prize[3] and the Ondaatje Prize.[4] In 2007 Spufford was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Career

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Spufford was chief publisher's reader from 1987–1990 for Chatto & Windus.[1] He was a Royal Literary Fund fellow at Anglia Ruskin University from 2005 to 2007,[5] and since 2008 has taught at Goldsmiths College in London on the MA in Creative and Life Writing there. In 2018 he was made a professor.[6]

Spufford specialised in non-fiction for the first part of his career, but began a transition towards fiction in 2010. In 2016 he for the first time published a book which could indisputably be classified as a novel.

Spufford has also edited three anthologies: The Chatto Book of Cabbages and Kings (1989), about lists used as a literary device, The Chatto Book of the Devil (1992), and The Antarctic (2008).

Spufford has written an unauthorised novel set in the universe of C. S. Lewis's Narnia series, The Stone Table. The novel takes place between The Magician's Nephew and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Spufford distributed self-printed copies to friends. Writer Adam Roberts praised it as "a seamless recreation of Lewis's writing-style at its best". The author hoped to obtain permission from the C. S. Lewis estate to publish it commercially, but did not receive a response from the estate. In the absence of permission, the earliest publication date would be 2034, seventy years after Lewis's death, when the copyright on the original books will expire in the UK.[7]

Personal life

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Spufford was born in 1964.[1] He is the son of social historian Margaret Spufford (1935–2014) and economic historian Professor Peter Spufford (1934–2017). He studied English literature at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, gaining a BA in 1985.[8] Spufford lives in Ely just outside Cambridge and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.[9]

A former atheist,[10] he is now a practising Christian and is married to an Anglican priest, the Reverend Dr Jessica Martin, who has served as the Dean of Chelmsford since 2025.[11][12] He served from 2015 to 2021 on General Synod as a lay representative of the Diocese of Ely.[13] He said in an interview that: "I'm no longer a representative of the General Synod because I was really bad at it. Being a good talker as a writer does not translate into being any kind of successful church politician."[1]

Awards

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Year Title Award Category Result Ref.
1997 I May Be Some Time Somerset Maugham Award — Won [14]
Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award — Won
2003 Backroom Boys Aventis Prize — Nominated
2010 Red Plenty BSFA Award Non-Fiction Shortlisted
2011 Orwell Prize — Longlisted [15]
Ondaatje Prize — Shortlisted [16]
2016 Golden Hill Books Are My Bag Readers' Award Beautiful Book Shortlisted
Costa Book Award for First Novel — Won [2]
2017 Authors' Club Best First Novel Award — Shortlisted [17]
British Book Awards Debut Novel of the Year Shortlisted [18]
Desmond Elliott Prize — Won [3]
Ondaatje Prize — Won [4]
Rathbones Folio Prize — Shortlisted [19]
Walter Scott Prize — Shortlisted [20]
2018 Europese Literatuurprijs — Longlisted
RUSA CODES Reading Award Historical Fiction Shortlisted [21]
2021 Light Perpetual Booker Prize — Longlisted [22]
HWA Crown Awards Gold Longlisted
2022 Encore Award — Won
2024 Cahokia Jazz Sidewise Award for Alternate History Long Form Won [23]

Published work

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  • I May Be Some Time (1996)
  • The Child That Books Built (2002)
  • Backroom Boys (2003)
  • Red Plenty (2010)
  • Unapologetic: Why Despite Everything, Christianity can Still Make Surprising Emotional Sense (2012)
  • Golden Hill (2016)
  • True Stories and Other Essays (2017)
  • Light Perpetual (2021)
  • Cahokia Jazz (2023)

References

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