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Will Self

Biography

Will Self was born in London in 1961. His father was a professor at the London School of Economics and his mother a publisher’s assistant. He studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford University. After university, he did various jobs, including as a road sweeper, cartoonist and stand-up comedian. At this time, he also became addicted to heroin. After having treatment for his addiction, he started writing and had early critical success, appearing on the Granta Best Young British Novelists (2). However, his heroin problem reappeared when, while working for the Observer covering the election campaign of John Major, he took heroin on Major’s jet. In 2012 he was appointed Professor of Contemporary Thought at Brunel University. He is also a noted flâneur. His self-consciously modernist novels have not always won favour with a broader reading public.

Other links

His website
His blog
Will Self
Will Self
Will Self
Author Will Self flees with his children after roof of £1million Georgian Stockwell townhouse collapses
Interview
Interview
Interview
Interview
Interview
His articles in The New Statesman
His articles in The Evening Standard
A Point of View: I’m not toasting [insert head-of-state here] (article by Self)

Bibliography

1991 The Quantity Theory Of Insanity (stories)
1992 Cock and Bull (novel)
1993 My Idea of Fun (novel)
1994 Grey Area (stories)
1996 Junk Mail (articles)
1996 The Sweet Smell Of Psychosis (novella)
1997 Great Apes (novel)
1998 Design Faults in the Volvo 760 Turbo (stories)
1998 Tough, Tough Toys for Tough, Tough Boys (stories)
2000 Perfidious Man (essay)
2000 How the Dead Live (novel)
2000 Sore Sites (articles)
2001 Feeding Frenzy (essays)
2002 Dorian, an Imitation (novel)
2004 Dr. Mukti and Other Tales of Woe (stories)
2006 The Book of Dave (novel)
2007 Psychogeography (articles)
2008 The Butt (novel)
2008 Liver: A Fictional Organ with a Surface Anatomy of Four Lobes (stories)
2009 Psycho Too (articles)
2010 The Undivided Self (stories)
2010 Walking to Hollywood (novel)
2012 The Unbearable Lightness of Being a Prawn Cracker (food criticism – ebook only)
2012 Umbrella (novel)
2014 Will Self’s Collected Fiction: Volume I
2014 Will Self’s Collected Fiction: Volume II
2014 Shark (novel)
2017 Phone (novel)
2021 Will (memoir)
2022 Why Read
2022 Tough Tough Toys For Tough Tough Boys