David Mitchell (author)

Mitchell was born in Southport in Lancashire (now Merseyside), England, and raised in Malvern, Worcestershire. He was educated at Hanley Castle High School. At the University of Kent, he earned a degree in English and American Literature, followed by an M.A. in Comparative Literature.

Mitchell lived in Sicily for a year. He moved to Hiroshima, Japan, where he taught English to technical students for eight years, before returning to England. There he could live on his earnings as a writer and support his pregnant wife.{{citation|url=http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6034/the-art-of-fiction-no-204-david-mitchell|journal=The Paris Review|title=David Mitchell, The Art of Fiction No. 204|year=2010|volume=Summer 2010|issue=193|last1=Begley|first1=Interviewed by Adam}}

Mitchell's first novel, Ghostwritten (1999), takes place in locations ranging from Okinawa to Mongolia to pre-millennial New York City, as nine narrators tell stories that interlock and intersect. It won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize (for best work of British literature written by an author under 35) and was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award.{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/1999/nov/06/guardianfirstbookaward1999.gurardianfirstbookaward1|work=The Guardian|title=Readers pick top Guardian books|date=6 November 1999|location=London|first=Fiachra|last=Gibbons}} His two subsequent novels, number9dream (2001) and Cloud Atlas (2004), were both favourably received and shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.{{cite web|url=http://www.themanbookerprize.com/prize/archive|title=Man Booker Prize Archive|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120106011610/http://www.themanbookerprize.com/prize/archive|archive-date=6 January 2012}}

In 2003, he was selected as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists.{{cite journal|url=http://www.granta.com/Archive/81/The-January-Man|author=Mitchell, D.|title=Best of Young British Novelists 2003: The January Man|issue=81|journal=Granta|year=2003|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120907202458/http://www.granta.com/Archive/81/The-January-Man|archive-date=7 September 2012}} In 2007, Mitchell was listed among Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People in The World.{{cite magazine|url=https://www.newyorker.com/culture/personal-history/the-transformative-experience-of-writing-for-sense8|title=The Transformative Experience of Writing for "Sense8"|date=1 May 2010|magazine=The New Yorker|access-date=27 September 2017}}

In 2012, his metafictional novel Cloud Atlas (again, with multiple narrators), was adapted as a feature film of the same name.

One segment of number9dream was adapted as a short film titled The Voorman Problem and starring Martin Freeman. It was nominated for a BAFTA in 2013.{{cite web|url=https://vimeopro.com/thechasefilms/the-chase-films|title=Link to video|date=21 July 2017 }}

In addition to novels, Mitchell has written opera libretti in recent years. Wake, with music by Klaas de Vries, was based on the 2000 Enschede fireworks disaster. It was performed by the Dutch Nationale Reisopera in 2010.{{cite news|author=David Mitchell|url=https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2010/may/08/david-mitchell-opera-wake|title=Article by Mitchell describing how he became involved in Wake|work=Guardian|date=8 May 2010|access-date=28 August 2013|location=London}} He created the opera, Sunken Garden, with Dutch composer Michel van der Aa; it was premiered in 2013 by the English National Opera.{{cite web|url=http://www.vanderaa.net/sunkengarden|title=Details of Sunken Garden from Van der Aa's official website|publisher=Vanderaa.net|date=9 June 2013|access-date=28 August 2013}}

Several of Mitchell's book covers were created by design duo Kai and Sunny.[http://www.kaiandsunny.com/publishing/publishing.php "Kai and Sunny: Publishing"] Mitchell has also collaborated with the duo, by contributing two short stories to their art exhibits in 2011 and 2014.{{fact|date=December 2024}}

Mitchell's sixth novel, The Bone Clocks, was published in 2014.{{cite web|url=http://www.thebookseller.com/news/new-david-mitchell-novel-out-next-autumn.html|title=New David Mitchell novel out next autumn|publisher=The Bookseller|date=26 November 2013|access-date=28 November 2013}} In an interview in The Spectator, Mitchell said that the novel has "dollops of the fantastic in it", and is about "stuff between life and death".{{cite news|url=http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/mark-greaves/2013/01/interview-with-a-writer-david-mitchell/|work=The Spectator|title=Interview with a writer: David Mitchell|date=25 January 2013|access-date=27 January 2013|archive-date=3 December 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131203105436/http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/mark-greaves/2013/01/interview-with-a-writer-david-mitchell/|url-status=dead}} The Bone Clocks was longlisted for the 2014 Man Booker Prize.{{Cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/may/30/david-mitchell-buries-latest-manuscript-for-a-hundred-years|title=David Mitchell buries latest manuscript for a hundred years|last=Flood|first=Alison|date=30 May 2016|website=The Guardian|access-date=2018-01-21}}

Mitchell was the second author to contribute to the Future Library project. He delivered his book From Me Flows What You Call Time on 28 May 2016.{{Cite news|url=https://www.tor.com/2016/05/31/david-mitchell-future-library-project-2114/|title=David Mitchell is the Second Author to Join the Future Library Project of 2114|date=31 May 2016|work=Tor.com|access-date=2018-01-21|language=en-US}}{{Cite news|url=http://www.cbc.ca/radio/day6/episode-288-fort-mcmurray-s-fridges-future-library-fake-weddings-north-korea-forced-labour-more-1.3614379/the-future-library-project-in-100-years-this-forest-will-be-harvested-to-print-david-mitchell-s-latest-work-1.3614409|title=The Future Library Project: In 100 years, this forest will be harvested to print David Mitchell's latest work|work=CBC Radio|access-date=2018-01-21|language=en}}

Utopia Avenue, Mitchell's ninth novel, was published by Hodder & Stoughton in 2020, during the first year of the Covid 19 pandemic.{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BONKDwAAQBAJ|title=Utopia Avenue|last1=Mitchell|first1=David|date=2 June 2020|publisher=Hodder & Stoughton |isbn=9781444799446}} Utopia Avenue tells the "unexpurgated story" of a British band of the same name, who emerged from London's psychedelic scene in 1967 and was "fronted by folk singer Elf Holloway, guitar demigod Jasper de Zoet and blues bassist Dean Moss".{{Cite news|last=Flood|first=Alison|date=2019-09-26|title=David Mitchell announces Utopia Avenue, his first novel in five years|language=en-GB|work=The Guardian|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/sep/26/david-mitchell-announces-utopia-avenue-his-first-novel-in-five-years|access-date=2020-06-24|issn=0261-3077}}

Mitchell's entire body of fictional works feature multiple recurring characters and themes that together form an interconnected fictional world, which Mitchell refers to as his 'macronovel'.{{Cite book |last=Harris-Birtill |first=Rose |url=https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/monograph?docid=b-9781350078628 |title=David Mitchell's Post-Secular World: Buddhism, Belief and the Urgency of Compassion |date=2019 |publisher=Bloomsbury Academic |isbn=978-1-350-07859-8 |doi=10.5040/9781350078628}}

Following the release of the 2012 film adaptation of Cloud Atlas, Mitchell began work as a screenwriter with Lana Wachowski (one of Cloud Atlas{{'}} three directors).

In 2015, Mitchell contributed plotting and scripted scenes for the second season of the Netflix series Sense8 by the Wachowskis. They had adapted the novel for a TV series, and together with Aleksandar Hemon, they wrote the series finale.{{Cite news|url=http://ew.com/tv/2017/09/27/sense8-production-begins-netflix-special/|title='Sense8': Production begins on Netflix special|work=EW.com|access-date=2018-01-21|language=en}} Mitchell had signed a contract to write season three of the series, but Netflix cancelled the show.{{Cite magazine|url=https://www.newyorker.com/culture/personal-history/the-transformative-experience-of-writing-for-sense8|title=The Transformative Experience of Writing for "Sense8"|last=Hemon|first=Aleksandar|date=27 September 2017|magazine=The New Yorker|access-date=2017-09-27|issn=0028-792X}}

In August 2019, it was announced that Mitchell would continue his collaboration with Lana Wachowski and Hemon to write the screenplay for The Matrix Resurrections.{{Cite news|url=https://variety.com/2019/film/news/matrix-4-keanu-reeves-carrie-anne-moss-lana-wachowski-1203307955/|title='Matrix 4' Officially a Go With Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss and Lana Wachowski|last=Kroll|first=Justin|date=20 August 2019|work=Variety|access-date=2019-08-20}}

After another stint in Japan, Mitchell and his wife, Keiko Yoshida, live in Ardfield, County Cork, Ireland, {{as of|2018|lc=yes}}. They have two children.{{cite journal |last1=Olson |first1=Danel |title=David Mitchell |journal=Weird Fiction Review |date=Winter 2018 |issue=9 |pages=384–404 }} In an essay for Random House, Mitchell wrote:{{cite web|url=http://www.randomhouse.com/boldtype/1100/mitchell/essay.html|title=Bold Type: Essay by David Mitchell|publisher=Randomhouse.com|access-date=28 August 2013}}

{{blockquote|I knew I wanted to be a writer since I was a kid, but until I came to Japan to live in 1994 I was too easily distracted to do much about it. I would probably have become a writer wherever I lived, but would I have become the same writer if I'd spent the last six years in London, or Cape Town, or Moose Jaw, on an oil rig or in the circus? This is my answer to myself.}}

Mitchell has a stammer.[http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2011/02/david-mitchell-stammering-kings-speech/ "Lost for words"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120104175240/http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2011/02/david-mitchell-stammering-kings-speech/ |date=4 January 2012 }}, David Mitchell, Prospect magazine, 23 February 2011, Issue No. 180 He believes that the film The King's Speech (2010) is one of the most accurate portrayals of that experience for an individual. He said, "I'd probably still be avoiding the subject today had I not outed myself by writing a semi-autobiographical novel, Black Swan Green, narrated by a stammering 13-year-old." Mitchell is a patron of the British Stammering Association.{{cite journal|url=http://stammering.org/bsgrevisited.html|title=Black Swan Green revisited|journal=Speaking Out|publisher=British Stammering Association|date=Spring 2011|access-date=30 June 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111016083015/http://stammering.org/bsgrevisited.html|archive-date=16 October 2011|url-status=dead}}

Mitchell's son is autistic. In 2013, Mitchell and his wife Yoshida translated a book into English that was written by Naoki Higashida, a 13-year-old Japanese autistic boy, titled The Reason I Jump: One Boy's Voice from the Silence of Autism.{{cite news|last=Tisdale|first=Sallie|title=Voice of the Voiceless|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/25/books/review/the-reason-i-jump-by-naoki-higashida.html|access-date=1 September 2013|newspaper=New York Times|date=23 August 2013}}

In 2017, Mitchell and his wife translated a second book attributed to Higashida, Fall Down 7 Times Get Up 8: A Young Man's Voice from the Silence of Autism.{{cite web| url=http://www.macleans.ca/society/david-mitchell-on-translating-and-learning-from-naoki-higashida/| title=David Mitchell on translating—and learning from—Naoki Higashida| first=Mike| last=Doherty| date=13 July 2017| publisher=Maclean's}}

Novels

• Ghostwritten (1999)
• number9dream (2001)
• Cloud Atlas (2004)
• Black Swan Green (2006)
• The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (2010)
• The Bone Clocks (2014)
• Slade House (2015)
• Utopia Avenue (2020)

Novellas

• From Me Flows What You Call Time (2016; publishing delayed until {{not a typo|2114 as part of Library of the Future project}})

Short stories

Opera librettos

• "Wake" opera in four acts (May 2010) by Klaas de Vries (composer), electronics by René Uijlenhoet for Nationale Reisopera
• "Sunken Garden"(12 April 2013), film opera for English National Opera at Barbican Theatre

Selected articles

• "Japan and my writing", Essay
• "Enter the Maze", The Guardian, 2004
• "Kill me or the cat gets it", The Guardian, 2005 (Book review of Kafka on the Shore)
• "Let me speak", British Stammering Association, 2006
• "On historical fiction", The Daily Telegraph, 2010
• "Adventures in Opera", The Guardian, 2010
• "Imaginary City", Geist, 2010
• "Lost for words", Prospect, 2011
• "Learning to live with my son's autism", The Guardian, 2013
• "David Mitchell on Earthsea – a rival to Tolkien and George RR Martin", The Guardian, 23 October 2015
• "Kate Bush and me: David Mitchell on being a lifelong fan of the pop poet". The Guardian, 7 December 2018{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/dec/07/david-mitchell-kate-bush-lyric-poetry|title=Kate Bush and me: David Mitchell on being a lifelong fan of the pop poet|newspaper=The Guardian|date=7 December 2018|last1=Mitchell|first1=David}}

Other

• "The Earthgod and the Fox", 2012 (translation of a short story by Kenji Miyazawa; translation printed in McSweeney's Issue 42, 2012)
• The Reason I Jump: One Boy's Voice from the Silence of Autism, 2013 (translation of book by Naoki Higashida)
• "Before the Dawn", 2014 (with Kate Bush co-wrote two spoken scenes during The Ninth Wave sequence in this live production).{{cite web|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p026gnq5|title=Author David Mitchell on working with 'hero' Kate Bush|date=11 September 2014 }}
• Fall Down 7 Times Get Up 8, 2017 (translation of Naoki Higashida's work)
• "Amor Vincit Omnia", 2018; Sense8 episode{{cite web |url=http://www.napolike.it/sense8-a-napoli-svelato-il-titolo-della-puntata-finale/ |title= Sense8 a Napoli, svelato il titolo dell'attesa puntata finale girata in città |date=2 October 2017 |author=Fabiana Bianchi |work=Napolike |access-date=7 October 2017 |language=it |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171007143307/http://www.napolike.it/sense8-a-napoli-svelato-il-titolo-della-puntata-finale/ |archive-date=7 October 2017 |url-status=live}}{{cite magazine |url=https://www.newyorker.com/culture/personal-history/the-transformative-experience-of-writing-for-sense8/ |title=The Transformative Experience of Writing for "Sense8" |author=Aleksandar Hemon |date=27 September 2017 |magazine=The New Yorker |publisher=Condé Nast |access-date=27 September 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170927182759/https://www.newyorker.com/culture/personal-history/the-transformative-experience-of-writing-for-sense8/ |archive-date=27 September 2017 |url-status=live|author-link=Aleksandar Hemon }}
• The Matrix Resurrections, 2021 (feature film screenplay co-written with Lana Wachowski and Aleksandar Hemon)

{{reflist}}

• "The world begins its turn with you, or how David Mitchell's novels think". In B. Schoene. The Cosmopolitan Novel. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009.
• Dillon, S. (ed.). David Mitchell: Critical Essays. Kent: Gylphi, 2011.
• {{cite journal |author=Bentley, Nick |date=2018 |title=Trailing Postmodernism : David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, Zadie Smith's NW, and the Metamodern |journal=English Studies |volume=99 |issue=7 |pages=723–43 |doi=10.1080/0013838X.2018.1510611 |s2cid=165906081 |url=https://eprints.keele.ac.uk/4519/1/Trailing%20Postmodernism%20English%20Studies.docx |url-access=subscription }}

{{wikiquote}}

• [http://www.thousandautumns.com Official website]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20121027170343/http://themanbookerprize.com/people/david-mitchell David Mitchell's profile] at the official Booker Prize site
• {{ISFDB name|28382}}
• {{cite journal|url=http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6034/the-art-of-fiction-no-204-david-mitchell|title=David Mitchell, The Art of Fiction No. 204|journal=Paris Review|date=Summer 2010|author=Adam Begley|volume=Summer 2010|issue=193}}
• {{cite news|last=Linklater|first=A.|title=The author who was forced to learn wordplay|newspaper=The Guardian|date=22 September 2007|url=https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2007/sep/22/healthandwellbeing.davidmitchell|access-date=23 September 2007|location=London}}
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20100611070521/http://www.untitledbooks.com/features/how/david-mitchell/ David Mitchell - How I Write], Untitled Books, May 2010
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20080301101136/http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/getwriting/module15p "Get Writing: Playing With Structure" by David Mitchell] at BBC.co
• [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/sep/02/david-mitchell-character-development "Character Development" by David Mitchell], a short story from The Guardian (2009)
• [https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/magazine/27mitchell-t.html "David Mitchell, the Experimentalist"], New York Times Magazine, June 2010
• [http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2010/07/05/100705crat_atlarge_wood "The Floating Library: What can't the novelist David Mitchell do?"], The New Yorker, 5 July 2010
• [https://www.literaturfestival.com/festival/programm/2021/ref%202021/the-art-of-scriptwriting?searchterm=the+art+of+script "The Art of Scriptwriting: David Mitchell on Matrix 4"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211117143423/https://www.literaturfestival.com/festival/programm/2021/ref%202021/the-art-of-scriptwriting?searchterm=the+art+of+script |date=17 November 2021 }}, at the 21. international literature festival, Berlin, 10 September 2021

{{David Mitchell}}{{World Fantasy Award Best Novel}}{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mitchell, David}}

Category:1969 births

Category:20th-century English novelists

Category:20th-century English translators

Category:21st-century English novelists

Category:21st-century British translators

Category:Alumni of the University of Kent

Category:Autism activists

Category:English expatriates in Ireland

Category:English expatriates in Italy

Category:English expatriates in Japan

Category:Japanese–English translators

Category:John Llewellyn Rhys Prize winners

Category:Living people

Category:People educated at Hanley Castle High School

Category:People from Southport

Category:British postmodern writers

Category:Teachers of English as a second or foreign language

Category:World Fantasy Award–winning writers

Category:Writers from Worcestershire

Category:English male novelists

Category:People with speech disorders

Category:English writers with disabilities