Mark Haddon

Mark Haddon (he/him) was born in Northampton, UK, in 1962. His novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Jonathan Cape, David Fickling, 2003) was published in two imprints—one for children and one for adults—to immediate success. It won 17 literary prizes, including the 2003 Whitbread Book of the Year. His second novel, A Spot of Bother (Vintage), was published in 2006 and shortlisted for the 2006 Costa Novel Award.

Haddon’s first book of poetry, The Talking Horse and the Sad Girl and the Village Under the Sea, was published by Picador in 2005. His first book for children, Gilbert's Gobstopper (Hamilton, first edition), was published in 1987 and followed by other books and picture books for children, many of which he illustrated. Other works include the novels Boom! (David Fickling Books, 2009), The Red House (Vintage, 2012), The Pier Falls (Vintage, 2016), and The Porpoise (Vintage, 2019).

Haddon graduated from Oxford University in 1981 and earned a Masters of Science in English literature at Edinburgh University. He then undertook a variety of jobs, including work with children and adults with mental and physical disabilities as well as work as an illustrator and a cartoonist for publications including the New Statesman, The Spectator, Private Eye, The Sunday Telegraph, and The Guardian. From 1996, he also worked on television projects and created and wrote several episodes for Microsoap, for which he won two BAFTAs and a Royal Television Society Award.

Mark Haddon teaches creative writing for the Arvon Foundation and at Oxford University.