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Ben Fergusson

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Ben Fergusson (born July 12, 1980 in Southampton) is a British writer and translator. He studied English Literature at Warwick University and Modern Languages at Bristol University. Before publishing his first novel he worked for ten years as an editor and publisher in the art world.[1] Fergusson lives with his husband and son in Berlin, where he teaches at the University of Potsdam.[2][3]

Novels

Fergusson's debut novel was The Spring of Kasper Meier (2014), a literary thriller set in the ruins of post-war Berlin.[4] In 2015, it won the Betty Trask Award,[5] the HWA Debut Crown,[6] and was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award.[7] The Spring of Kasper Meier was the first novel in a trilogy of books set in the same apartment block in Berlin at different points in the city's twentieth century history. His second novel, The Other Hoffmann Sister (2017), is partly set in German South West Africa, now Namibia, and Berlin during the German Revolution of 1918–1919. An Honest Man (2019), the final book in the trilogy, is a queer Cold War thriller set in West Berlin during the summer before the Fall of the Berlin Wall.[8] The latter was a book of the year in The Times,[9] the Financial Times,[10] and the Times Literary Supplement.[11]

Bibliography

  • The Spring of Kasper Meier (2014)
  • The Other Hoffmann Sister (2017)
  • An Honest Man (2019)

Awards

  • Seán O'Faoláin International Short Story Award 2020[12]
  • Stephen Spender Prize 2020 for poetry in translation[13]
  • Betty Trask Prize 2015[14]
  • HWA Debut Crown 2015[15]
  • Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year 2015 (shortlist)[16]
  • Authors' Club Best First Novel Award 2015 (longlist)

References

  1. ^ "The Spring Of Kasper Meier by Ben Fergusson". bbc.co.uk. BBC. Retrieved 22 May 2021.
  2. ^ "Ben Fergusson". hachette.co.uk. Hachette. Retrieved 22 May 2021.
  3. ^ "Ben Fergusson". www.uni-potsdam.de. University of Potsdam. Retrieved 22 May 2021.
  4. ^ "Fergusson and Morpurgo win Historical Fiction Awards". harrogate-news.co.uk. Harrogate Informer. Retrieved 22 May 2021.
  5. ^ Flood, Alison. "Betty Trask award goes to Ben Fergusson's 'grittily evocative' debut". The Guardian. The Guardian. Retrieved 19 May 2021.
  6. ^ Onwuemezi, Natasha. "Fergusson wins Debut Crown at HWA awards". The Bookseller. The Bookseller. Retrieved 19 May 2021.
  7. ^ Flood, Alison. "Poet Sarah Howe named young writer of the year". The Guardian. The Guardian. Retrieved 19 May 2021.
  8. ^ Robson, Jeff. "An Honest Man, by Ben Fergusson, review: Secrets and lies in a gripping tale of life in the shadow of the Berlin Wall". The i Newspaper. The i Newspaper. Retrieved 23 May 2021.
  9. ^ Rennison, Nick. "The best new historical fiction — lust, loyalty and breaking barriers in Cold War Berlin". The Times. The Times. Retrieved 19 May 2021.
  10. ^ "Best Books of 2019: Thrillers". The Financial Times. The Financial Times. Retrieved 19 May 2021.
  11. ^ "Books of the Year 2019". The Times Literary Supplement. The Times Literary Supplement. Retrieved 19 May 2021.
  12. ^ "Winners of the Seán O'Faoláin Short Story Prize". www.munsterlit.ie. Munster Literature Centre. Retrieved 22 May 2021.
  13. ^ "Stephen Spender Prize 2020" (PDF). www.stephen-spender.org. Stephen Spender Trust. Retrieved 22 May 2021.
  14. ^ Flood, Alison. "Betty Trask award goes to Ben Fergusson's 'grittily evocative' debut". The Guardian. The Guardian. Retrieved 19 May 2021.
  15. ^ Onwuemezi, Natasha. "Fergusson wins Debut Crown at HWA awards". The Bookseller. The Bookseller. Retrieved 19 May 2021.
  16. ^ Flood, Alison. "Poet Sarah Howe named young writer of the year". The Guardian. The Guardian. Retrieved 19 May 2021.