Anthony Horowitz facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Anthony Horowitz CBE
Horowitz in 2022
Born	Anthony John Horowitz (1955-04-05) 5 April 1955 (age 70) Stanmore, Middlesex, England
Occupation	Novelist, screenwriter, children's author & adult author
Alma mater	University of York
Genre	Adventure, mystery, thriller, horror, fantasy
Notable works	Alex Rider The Power of Five The Diamond Brothers Foyle's War The House of Silk Magpie Murders
Spouse	Jill Green ​ (m. 1988)​
Children	2

Anthony John Horowitz (born 5 April 1955) is a famous English writer and screenwriter. He is well-known for his exciting mystery and suspense stories. Many of his books are for children and young adults, like the popular Alex Rider series, which is about a 14-year-old spy. He also wrote The Power of Five series and The Diamond Brothers series.

Besides his books for young readers, Horowitz has written many novels for adults. These include detective stories like Magpie Murders and Moonflower Murders, and two official Sherlock Holmes novels. He was even chosen by the family of James Bond creator Ian Fleming to write new James Bond adventures!

Anthony Horowitz has also written a lot for television. He has created and written several TV shows, including the detective series Foyle's War and Collision. He also wrote episodes for popular shows like Agatha Christie's Poirot and Midsomer Murders.

Early Life and Becoming a Writer

Rugby School in Warwickshire, where Anthony Horowitz went to school.

Anthony Horowitz was born in Stanmore, Middlesex, England. He grew up in a comfortable family. As a child, he loved to visit Instow and go boating on the River Torridge. He even had a stuffed monkey named Benjamin!

He went to Orley Farm School and later to Rugby School, a well-known boarding school. From a young age, around eight or nine, he knew he wanted to be a writer. He found comfort and excitement in books and telling stories, especially since he wasn't very good at sports or schoolwork. He once said, "I was quite certain, from my earliest memory, that I would be a professional writer and nothing but."

Horowitz's mother encouraged his love for spooky stories. She introduced him to classic tales like Frankenstein and Dracula. She even gave him a real human skull for his 13th birthday! He says it reminds him to always finish his stories. He later studied English literature and art history at the University of York.

His Amazing Books

Starting His Writing Journey (1979–1991)

Anthony Horowitz's first book for children was The Sinister Secret of Frederick K Bower, published in 1979. He then moved to Paris to write his third book.

In 1983, he started the Pentagram series with The Devil's Door-Bell. This book was about a 13-year-old boy named Martin Hopkins who battles an ancient evil. He wrote three more books in this series: The Night of the Scorpion, The Silver Citadel, and Day of the Dragon.

A very important book from his early career was The Falcon's Malteser (1986). This was the first book in his popular The Diamond Brothers series, featuring the hilarious detective brothers, Tim and Nick Diamond. More books in this series followed, like Public Enemy Number Two and South by South East.

In 1988, he published Groosham Grange, a story about a "witch" named David Eliot. This book won an award and some people have noticed it has similarities to the later Harry Potter series.

Growing Success in Children's Fiction (1992–1999)

During the 1990s, Horowitz wrote many stand-alone novels. These included Granny (1994), a funny thriller, and The Switch (1996), a body-swap story. He also wrote The Devil and His Boy (1997), which is set in the old Elizabethan era.

In 1999, he wrote The Unholy Grail, a sequel to Groosham Grange. He also released Horowitz Horror (1999), a collection of spooky short stories for young readers, where he explored a darker side of his writing.

Becoming a Bestseller (2000–2010)

The new millennium brought Horowitz his most famous series: Alex Rider. These books are about a 14-year-old boy who becomes a spy for the British Secret Service, MI6. There are many books in this exciting series, including Stormbreaker (2000), Point Blanc (2001), Skeleton Key (2002), and many more. He has continued to write Alex Rider books, with the latest being Nightshade Revenge (2023).

He also wrote three more short stories for the Diamond Brothers series, which were later collected in Three of Diamonds (2004).

Horowitz continued his horror short stories with More Horowitz Horror (2000) and More Bloody Horowitz (2009). He even wrote a funny revenge story about another author, Darren Shan, in The Man Who Killed Darren Shan!

In 2005, he started another very successful series for young adults called The Power of Five (known as The Gatekeepers in the USA). This series is based on his earlier Pentagram novels but is rewritten and expanded. The books include Raven's Gate (2005), Evil Star (2006), Nightrise (2007), Necropolis (2008), and the final book, Oblivion (2012). Horowitz describes this series as "Alex Rider with devils and witches."

Continued Success (2011–Present)

In 2011, the family of Arthur Conan Doyle, who created Sherlock Holmes, asked Anthony Horowitz to write a new Sherlock Holmes novel. This was a big deal because it was the first time they officially approved a new story! The book, The House of Silk, was published in 2011, followed by Moriarty in 2014.

Then, in 2014, the family of James Bond creator Ian Fleming asked Horowitz to write new James Bond novels. He wrote Trigger Mortis (2015), Forever and A Day (2018), and With a Mind to Kill (2022). He is the only author in recent times to be asked to write several official James Bond books.

In 2016, his adult mystery novel Magpie Murders was published, which became very popular. A sequel, Moonflower Murders, came out in 2020.

Horowitz also started a new series of detective novels in 2017 where he writes himself into the story as a novelist who helps a private investigator named Hawthorne solve crimes. These books include The Word is Murder and The Sentence is Death.

Writing for Film and Television

Movies

Anthony Horowitz has written screenplays for several movies. He wrote the script for Just Ask for Diamond (1989), which was a film based on his own Diamond Brothers book, The Falcon's Malteser.

He also wrote the screenplay for the thriller movie The Gathering (2003), which starred Christina Ricci.

Of course, he wrote the screenplay for the first Alex Rider movie, Stormbreaker (2006).

Television Shows

Horowitz started writing for TV in the 1980s. He wrote episodes for children's shows like Dramarama and the fantasy series Robin of Sherwood. He also created Crossbow (1987), an action-adventure series based on William Tell.

He became well-known for writing murder mysteries for TV. He adapted several Hercule Poirot stories for the popular Agatha Christie's Poirot series. He also wrote many early episodes of Midsomer Murders.

In 1991, he wrote and directed a six-part TV series called The Diamond Brothers, based on his book South by South East.

In 2001, he created his own drama series for the BBC called Murder in Mind, where each episode featured a different murder mystery. He also created two science-fiction shows, Crime Traveller (1997) and The Vanishing Man (1998).

One of his most successful TV projects is Foyle's War, a detective series he created in 2002. It's set during and after the Second World War and ran for many years.

He also created the crime dramas Collision (2009) and Injustice (2011). More recently, he adapted his own novels, Magpie Murders and Moonflower Murders, into popular TV miniseries.

Personal Life

Anthony Horowitz lives in Central London with his wife, Jill Green. They got married in Hong Kong in 1988. Jill Green is a TV producer and has produced many of the shows Anthony has written, including Foyle's War. They have two sons.

Horowitz often says that his family helps him a lot with ideas and research for his books. He also supports charities that help families and protect children.

Awards and Recognitions

Anthony Horowitz has received many awards for his contributions to literature. He was given the title of Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2014 and then Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2022, both for his services to literature.

He won an Edgar Allan Poe Award for a TV episode of Magpie Murders. For his Alex Rider books, he won the Hampshire Book Award for Skeleton Key in 2003 and the California Young Reader Medal for Stormbreaker in 2005, among others. His TV series Foyle's War also won a BAFTA award in 2003.

Film and Television Work

Film

Television

Theatre

Images for kids

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  Horowitz in 2022

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  Rugby School in Warwickshire

See also

In Spanish: Anthony Horowitz para niños