Michel Faber facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Michel Faber
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Michel Faber at HeadRead festival, Estonia, in 2019
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| Born | 13 April 1960 The Hague, Netherlands |
| Occupation | Novelist, poet, journalist |
| Citizenship | Naturalized British (since 1993) |
| Education | University of Melbourne |
| Period | 1998–present |
| Genre | Poetry, fiction |
| Notable works | The Crimson Petal and the White, Under the Skin, The Book of Strange New Things, LISTEN: On Music,Sound and Us |
| Partner | Louisa Young |
Michel Faber (born on April 13, 1960) is a writer who was born in the Netherlands. He writes books in English. Some of his most famous books are The Crimson Petal and the White, published in 2002, and Under the Skin from 2000. Under the Skin was later made into a movie by Jonathan Glazer, starring Scarlett Johansson.
In 2020, he released a novel for young adults called D: A Tale of Two Worlds. His non-fiction book about music, Listen: On Music, Sound and Us, was published in October 2023.
Contents
About Michel Faber
Michel Faber was born in The Hague, Netherlands. In 1967, when he was seven years old, he and his parents moved to Australia. He went to primary and secondary school in the Melbourne suburbs of Boronia and Bayswater.
Education and Early Career
After school, Faber attended the University of Melbourne. He studied subjects like Dutch, Philosophy, and English Literature. He finished his studies in 1980. Before becoming a full-time writer, he worked many different jobs. He was a cleaner and also trained as a nurse in Sydney, Australia. He worked as a nurse until the mid-1990s.
In 1993, he moved to Scotland with his second wife and family. Sadly, his second wife, Eva, passed away from cancer in July 2014. In 2016, he published a collection of poems called Undying about this difficult time. A book about his life and work, Michel Faber: The Writer and his Work by Rodge Glass, was published in 2023.
Where He's From
Michel Faber is seen as a Scottish author by many people in Scotland. This is because he won several literary prizes there, like the Neil Gunn Prize and the Macallan Prize. He also lived in Scotland for a long time, and his books are published by a Scottish company.
However, in Australia, he is considered an Australian writer. This is because he lived there for many years and completed most of his schooling there. Some of his short stories are also set in Australia.
Michel Faber's Books
Michel Faber started writing seriously when he was fourteen. However, he didn't try to publish his work for a long time. Many of the short stories in his first collection and early versions of The Crimson Petal and the White were written in the 1980s. His wife, Eva, encouraged him to start entering writing competitions in the 1990s. He began winning these competitions, which led to him being contacted by a publisher in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Early Published Works
Faber's first published book was a collection of short stories called Some Rain Must Fall, released in 1998. Some of these stories had already won awards. For example, "Fish" won the Macallan Prize in 1996.
His first novel to be published was Under the Skin in 2000. He wrote this book while living in the Scottish Highlands, and the area inspired the story. This book is hard to put into just one category. It mixes science fiction, horror, and thriller elements. Critics praised it, and it was translated into many languages. It also helped him become well-known in Europe.
Faber's next novel was The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps (2001), which takes place in Whitby. In 2002, he published The Courage Consort, a story about a singing group practicing a challenging piece of music.
The Crimson Petal and the White
In 2002, Faber published his long novel, The Crimson Petal and the White, which is about 850 pages long. The story is set in London in the 1870s. It mainly follows a 19-year-old character named Sugar. Some critics said it was like a modern version of a Charles Dickens novel. Faber spent twenty years writing this book. It became a bestseller in many countries, including the US, Italy, and France.
Even though The Crimson Petal and the White is his most popular book, Faber decided not to write a direct sequel. However, he did write some short stories that featured characters from the novel. These stories showed parts of the characters' lives before or after the main book. These stories were collected and published as The Apple in 2006.
Later Novels and Non-Fiction
Faber's second collection of short stories, The Fahrenheit Twins, came out in 2005. One of its stories, "The Safehouse," won second place in a major short story prize.
In 2008, Faber's novel The Fire Gospel was published. It was inspired by the ancient Greek myth of Prometheus. The book tells the story of a scholar who finds an old 'gospel' about the death of Jesus.
In 2009, he contributed a short story called "Walking After Midnight" to a charity project called 'Ox-Tales'.
His sixth novel, The Book of Strange New Things, was published in 2014. This novel is about a British missionary who travels to an alien world. After this book, Faber announced that he would stop writing novels for adults. He felt he had written all the stories he was meant to tell. In June 2015, The Book of Strange New Things was named a Book of the Year by World magazine. A TV pilot based on the book, called Oasis, was released in 2017.
His novel for children, D: A Tale of Two Worlds, was published in 2020. In October 2023, his non-fiction book LISTEN: On Music, Sound and Us was released. This book explores music, groups of people, and human communities.
Journalism and Articles
From 2001 to 2004, Michel Faber reviewed books for the Scotland on Sunday newspaper. In 2004, he wrote a regular column for The Sunday Herald called "Image Conscious." In this column, he looked closely at different photographs and explained their meanings. Since 2003, he has also written reviews for The Guardian newspaper. He often chooses to review foreign fiction, short story collections, and books about music.
In 2004, Faber traveled to Ukraine with the organization Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders). He went to see their work helping people with the HIV/AIDS epidemic there. He wrote an article about his experience for The Sunday Times, which was published in January 2005.
In 2006, he wrote an essay called "Dreams in the Dumpster, Language Down the Drain." This essay was part of a collection of writings about the Iraq War. In 2019, he contributed to A Love Letter To Europe, a collection of pieces showing affection for Europe.
Books and Stories Made into Movies and Shows
Many of Michel Faber's works have been adapted for television, radio, and film.
- The Crimson Petal and the White was made into a four-part TV series by the BBC in 2011. It starred actors like Romola Garai and Chris O'Dowd.
- The Courage Consort has been adapted for radio twice. Once by the BBC in the UK and once by ABC Australia.
- Under the Skin was made into a film directed by Jonathan Glazer and starring Scarlett Johansson. It first showed at the Venice Film Festival on September 3, 2013.
- The Book of Strange New Things was adapted into ten 15-minute episodes for BBC Radio 4 in 2014. It was also made into a pilot for an Amazon Prime TV series called Oasis.
See also
In Spanish: Michel Faber para niños
