|
William Woodard Self (born 26 September 1961) is an English novelist, journalist, political commentator and television personality. Self is the author of ten novels, five collections of shorter fiction, three novellas and five collections of non-fiction writing. His work has been translated into 22 languages, and his novel ''Umbrella'' was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.〔(Will Self )〕 His fiction is known for being satirical, grotesque, and fantastical, and is predominantly set within his home city of London. His subject matter often includes mental illness, illegal drugs and psychiatry. Self is a regular contributor to publications including ''Playboy'', the ''Guardian'', ''Harper's'', the ''New York Times'' and the ''London Review of Books''. He currently writes a column for ''New Statesman'', and over the years he has been a columnist for the ''Observer'', the ''Times'' and the ''Evening Standard''. His columns for ''Building Design'' on the built environment, and for the ''Independent Magazine'' on the psychology of place brought him to prominence as a thinker concerned with the politics of urbanism. Self is a regular contributor on British television, initially as a guest on comic panel shows such as ''Have I Got News for You'' and ''Shooting Stars'', but latterly appearing on current affairs programmes such as ''Newsnight'' and ''Question Time''. He is also a frequent contributor to BBC Radio 4. ==Early life== William Woodard Self was born in Westminster and brought up in north London, between the suburbs of East Finchley and Hampstead Garden Suburb. His parents were Peter John Otter Self, Professor of Public Administration at the London School of Economics, and Elaine Self (née Rosenbloom), an American Jew from Queens, New York, who worked as a publisher's assistant.〔M. Hunter Hayes ''Understanding Will Self'', p.7〕〔(Understanding Will Self – M. Hunter Hayes – Google Books )〕 His paternal grandfather, Sir Albert Henry Self, with working class origins in Fulham, was a high-ranking civil servant and President of the Modern Churchmen's Union, who was also deputy chairman of the British Electricity Authority and Chairman of the Electricity Council.〔(Laurie Taylor – The luxury of doubt: Laurie Taylor interviews Will Self | New Humanist )〕〔(Will Self Book Extract: An Essay On Electricity )〕 He is also descended from the 19th century educationalist Nathaniel Woodard, hence his middle name.〔M. Hunter Hayes ''Understanding Will Self'', p.10〕 As a child, Self spent a year living in Ithaca in Upstate New York.〔 Self's parents separated when he was nine, and divorced when he was eighteen. Despite the intellectual encouragement given by his parents, he was an emotionally confused and self-destructive child, harming himself with cigarette ends and knives before getting into drugs.〔("Living Will" )〕 Self was a voracious reader from a young age. At ten he developed an interest in works of science fiction such as Frank Herbert's ''Dune'', J. G. Ballard and Philip K. Dick. Into his teenage years, Self claimed to have been "overawed by the canon", stifling his ability to express himself. Nevertheless, Self's dabbling with drugs grew in step with his prolific reading. Self started smoking marijuana at the age of twelve, graduating through amphetamines, cocaine, and LSD to heroin, which he started injecting at eighteen.〔Will Self's Transgressive Fictions Brian. Finney From: Postmodern Culture Volume 11, Number 3, May 2001 http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/postmodern_culture/summary/v011/11.3finney.html〕 Self attended University College School, an independent school for boys in Hampstead.〔''Have I Got News For You?'', Series 13 episode 1〕 He later attended Christ's College, Finchley, from where he went to Exeter College at the University of Oxford, reading Philosophy, Politics and Economics, graduating with a third class degree.〔 He claims to have only attended two lectures.〔http://penguinrandomhouse.ca/hazlitt/feature/were-all-surrealists-now-interview-will-self〕 At Oxford he became editor of and frequent contributor to an underground left-wing student newspaper called Red Herring/Oxford Strumpet, copies of which are archived in the Bodleian Library. His reasons for reading PPE rather than English literature were discussed by Self in an interview with the ''Guardian'' newspaper: I () a pretty thorough grounding in the canon, but I certainly didn't want to be involved with criticism. Even then it seemed inimical to what it was to be a writer, which is what I really wanted to be. Of Self's background Nick Rennison has written that he: is sometimes presented as a bad-boy outsider, writing, like the Americans William S Burroughs and Hubert Selby Jr, about sex, drugs and violence in a very direct way. Yet he is not some class warrior storming the citadels of the literary establishment from the outside, but an Oxford educated, middle-class metropolitan who, despite his protestations to the contrary in interviews, is about as much at the heart of the establishment as you can get, a place he has occupied almost from the start of his career.〔M. Hunter Hayes ''Understanding Will Self'', p12〕 Self struggled with mental health issues during this period, and at the age of 20 became a hospital outpatient.〔http://www.interviewmagazine.com/culture/will-self#_〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Will Self」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|