A. L. Kennedy

A.L. Kennedy was born in Dundee. She lived for almost 30 years in Glasgow and now stays in North Essex. She has won a variety of UK and international book awards, including a Lannan Award, the Costa Prize, The Heinrich Heine Preis, the Somerset Maugham Award and the John Llewellyn Rees Prize. She has twice been included on the Granta Best of Young British Novelists list. She has written 9 novels, 6 short story collections, 3 books of non-fiction and 3 books for children. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a member of the Akademie der Kunst. She also writes for the stage, screen, TV and has created an extensive body of radio work including documentaries, monologues, dramas and essays. She also performs occasionally in one person shows and as a stand up comic.

© Photo credit: Robin Niedojadlo

Awards

• Scottish Arts Council Book Award four times
• 1993, 2003 Granta Best Young British Novelist
• 1991 Saltire Society Scottish First Book of the Year, Night Geometry and the Garscadden Trains
• 1993 Edinburgh Fringe First, The Audition
• 1994 Somerset Maugham Award, Looking for the possible dance
• 1996 Encore Award winner, So I Am Glad
• 2007 Saltire Society Book of the Year, Day
• 2007 Lannan Literary Award for fiction
• 2007 Austrian State Prize for European Literature winner.
• 2007 Costa Book Awards Book of the Year, winner for Day
• 2008 Internationale Eifel-Literatur-Preis
• 2014 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award shortlist All the Rage
• 2016 Heinrich Heine Prize

Selected Publications

Novels

• Looking for the Possible Dance (1993) ISBN 978-0-7493-9758-6
• So I Am Glad (1995) ISBN 978-0-09-945721-3
• Everything You Need (1999) ISBN 978-0-09-973061-3
• Paradise (2004) ISBN 978-0-09-943349-1
• Day (5 April 2007) ISBN 978-0-09-949405-8
• The Blue Book (4 August 2011) ISBN 978-0-224-09140-4
• Doctor Who: The Drosten’s Curse (14 July 2015) ISBN 978-0-553-41944-3
• Serious Sweet (19 May 2016) ISBN 978-0-224-09844-1
• The Little Snake (6 November 2018) ISBN 978-1786893864

Short story collections

• Night Geometry and the Garscadden Trains (1990) ISBN 978-0-09-945006-1
• Now That You’re Back (1994) ISBN 978-0-09-945711-4
• Tea and Biscuits (1996) ISBN 978-1-85799-757-6
• Original Bliss (1997) ISBN 978-0-09-973071-2
• Indelible Acts (2002) ISBN 978-0-09-943348-4
• What Becomes (6 August 2009) ISBN 978-0-224-07787-3
• All the Rage (2014) ISBN 978-0544307049
• We Are Attempting To Survive Our Time (2020) ISBN 978-1787331822

Non-fiction

• Life & Death of Colonel Blimp (1997) ISBN 0-85170-568-5
• On Bullfighting (1999) ISBN 0-224-06099-6
• On Writing (2013) ISBN 978-0-224-09697-3
• ’’Care of the Luwak’’ (2010)

Literary Focus

• Novels, short stories and non-fiction, blending of realism and fantasy