He must also think ahead so as to avoid being surprised by words beginning with certain letters, ‘n’ or ‘s’ say, which may cause him to pause and thus reveal to the cruel exigency of the playground, the existence of his stammer. Jason Taylor, the thirteen-year-old narrator of Black Swan Green, must, if he is to conceal his speech defect, forever seek alternative means of saying the same thing he must rephrase, search for synonym and close association. Recent books include The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (2010), winner of the 2011 Commonwealth Writers Prize (South Asia and Europe Region, Best Book), The Bone Clocks (2013) and Slade House (2015).īlack Swan Green (2006), David Mitchell’s fourth novel, a bildungsroman set in provincial England in 1982, fictionalises the author’s experience of being a stammerer, and, in so doing, makes clear the psychological foundation of the style of storytelling which has brought this remarkable novelist such popular and critical acclaim in the first decades of the 21st century. Cloud Atlas was shortlisted for the 2004 Man Booker Prize for Fiction, and was followed by Black Swan Green (2006).ĭavid Mitchell lives in Ireland. In his third novel, Cloud Atlas (2004), a young Pacific islander witnesses the nightfall of science and civilisation, while questions of history are explored in a series of seemingly disconnected narratives. In 2003 David Mitchell was named by Granta magazine as one of twenty 'Best of Young British Novelists'. It is set in modern day Tokyo and tells the story of Eiji Miyake's search for his father. This novel won the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award.His second novel, number9dream (2001), was shortlisted for the 2002 Man Booker Prize for fiction.

He lived for a year in Sicily before moving to Hiroshima, Japan, where he taught English to technical students for eight years, before returning to England.In his first novel, Ghostwritten (1999), nine narrators in nine locations across the globe tell interlocking stories. Born in Southport in 1969, David Mitchell grew up in Malvern, Worcestershire, studying for a degree in English and American Literature followed by an MA in Comparative Literature, at the University of Kent.

Cloud atlas novel by david mitchell