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Fiona Mozley

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Fiona Mozley
Born1988 (age 35–36)
Hackney, London, England
OccupationWriter; novelist
LanguageEnglish
Alma mater
GenreLiterary fiction
Years active2017 – present
Notable worksElmet
Hot Stew
Notable awardsPolari Prize (2018)
Somerset Maugham Award (2018)
Website
www.fionamozley.com

Fiona Mozley (born 1988)[1] is an English novelist and medievalist. Her debut novel, Elmet, was shortlisted for the 2017 Booker Prize.[2]

Life and literature

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Fiona Mozley was born in 1988 in the London Borough of Hackney,[3] and grew up in York, where she attended Fulford School.[4] After graduating from King's College, Cambridge, Mozley lived in Honor Oak and briefly taught English in Buenos Aires before moving back to York in 2013 for her Master of Arts (MA).[5] As of 2017, she was in the midst of her PhD thesis at the University of York[1] on the concept of decay in the Late Middle Ages. She also works part-time in a bookshop.[6]

Mozley sees as York's most significant literature its Mystery Plays. These along with local drama groups she views "as having influenced my own writing more significantly than any books I have read."[7] When asked at an earlier interview about writers and works she particularly enjoyed, she mentioned some by Cormac McCarthy and Ursula K. Le Guin, and by Philip Pullman, whom she had loved as a child.[1] Mozley's novel Elmet appeared in the 2018 Irish Leaving Certificate English examination.[citation needed]

Work

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The name "Elmet" is taken from a Celtic kingdom that once covered West Yorkshire. In the novel, Mozley "wanted to capture the ambiguity of local historical recollections; to say something about their double-edged thrall; to examine the desire to live in the past and the need to extricate oneself from it."[8][5][9][10]

The novel Elmet is concerned strongly with the idea of home, "the building of a house, the preparation of food; stolen glimpses of a woman's wardrobe."[11] This moves stealthily onto the fact that the 14-year-old narrator, Daniel, is not just domesticated, but must come to terms with being gay, or even transgender, while his older sister Cathy is a tomboy "raised in isolation by a man poorly suited to the job, and taught skills typically taken up by boys."[11] "Daddy" is kind to his two children, but otherwise known to be violent. The father's concern is for the land: "the wilderness tamed by man's benevolent but dictatorial hand... [that] provides fertile ground for the evil that men do."[11] The front cover of the novel was illustrated by Vanessa Lubach using a multilayered linocut.[12]

Mozley's second novel titled Hot Stew was published in 2021. Writing for The Guardian, Alex Preston praised the work and said it confirmed the author was "a writer of extraordinary empathic gifts".[13]

Awards

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Year Work Prize Result Ref
2017 Elmet Booker Prize — Shortlisted [14]
2018 Dylan Thomas Prize — Longlisted [15]
Edmund White Award — Shortlisted [16]
Ondaatje Prize — Shortlisted [17]
Polari Prize First Book Won [18]
Somerset Maugham Award — Won [19]
Women's Prize for Fiction — Longlisted [20]
2019 Europese Literatuurprijs — Longlisted [21]
International Dublin Literary Award — Longlisted [22]
2021 Hot Stew Dylan Thomas Prize — Longlisted [23]

Bibliography

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  • —— (2017). Elmet (1st paperback ed.). John Murray Originals. ISBN 9781473660540.
  • —— (2021). Hot Stew (1st hardcover ed.). Algonquin Books. ISBN 9781643751559.

References

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  1. ^ a b c Vogue interview, 16 October 2017 Retrieved 24 May 2018.
  2. ^ "Fiona Mozley is a rising star of British fiction". The Economist. Retrieved 4 August 2017.
  3. ^ Publisher's site Retrieved 24 May 2018.
  4. ^ Williers, Daniel (18 October 2017). "York author narrowly misses out on Man Booker Prize". The York Press. Retrieved 25 April 2020.
  5. ^ a b Mozley, Fiona (30 September 2017). "Fiona Mozley: I'm on the Man Booker shortlist and top of my fantasy football league". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 January 2018.
  6. ^ "How author Fiona Mozley went from working part-time in a bookshop to shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize". The National. Retrieved 17 January 2018.
  7. ^ Statement in The Guardian, 27 January 2018 Retrieved 24 May 2018.
  8. ^ Mozley, F. (2017). Elmet. Algonquin Books. ISBN 978-1-61620-844-8. Retrieved 17 January 2018.
  9. ^ "'Elmet' Backs a Brawny Man Into a Dangerous Corner". The New York Times. 27 November 2017. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 17 January 2018.
  10. ^ "Debut Author Channeled Her 'Darker Bits' Into A Man Booker Shortlist Novel". NPR.org. Retrieved 17 January 2018.
  11. ^ a b c J. Robert Lennon: "Scary Dad", London Review of Books, 10 May 2018, pp. 35–37.
  12. ^ "Vanessa Lubach". www.vanessalubach.co.uk. Retrieved 25 January 2024.
  13. ^ Preston, Alex (14 March 2021). "Hot Stew by Fiona Mozley review – a rich, ribald tale of old Soho under siege". The Observer. ISSN 0029-7712. Retrieved 8 May 2023.
  14. ^ "The Man Booker Prize 2017 | The Booker Prizes". thebookerprizes.com. Retrieved 8 February 2024.
  15. ^ "2018 Longlist - Swansea University". www.swansea.ac.uk. Retrieved 8 February 2024.
  16. ^ "The Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction". The Publishing Triangle. Retrieved 8 February 2024.
  17. ^ "The 2018 RSL Ondaatje Prize Shortlist Celebrates "The Evocation of a Place"". The Millions. 19 April 2018. Retrieved 8 February 2024.
  18. ^ Association, Press (20 October 2018). "Fiona Mozley wins the 2018 Polari prize for debut LGBT writing". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 8 February 2024.
  19. ^ "Somerset Maugham Awards - The Society of Authors". 8 May 2020. Retrieved 8 February 2024.
  20. ^ "2018 Prize". Women's Prize for Fiction. Retrieved 8 February 2024.
  21. ^ "Europese Literatuurprijs - Winnaar 2019". www.europeseliteratuurprijs.nl. Retrieved 8 February 2024.
  22. ^ IGO (3 September 2019). "Elmet". Dublin Literary Award. Retrieved 8 February 2024.
  23. ^ Review, Wales Arts (21 January 2021). "Dylan Thomas Prize 2021: Longlist Announced - Wales Arts Review". www.walesartsreview.org. Retrieved 8 February 2024.
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