Michel Faber
Encyclopedia
Michel Faber is a Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

-born writer of fiction. He writes in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

.

Faber was born in The Hague
The Hague
The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...

, Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

. He and his parents emigrated to Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 in 1967. He attended primary and secondary school in the Melbourne suburbs of Boronia
Boronia, Victoria
Boronia is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 29 km east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Knox...

 and Bayswater
Bayswater, Victoria
Bayswater is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 28 km east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Knox. At the 2006 Census, Bayswater had a population of 10,738.-History:...

, then attended the University Of Melbourne
University of Melbourne
The University of Melbourne is a public university located in Melbourne, Victoria. Founded in 1853, it is the second oldest university in Australia and the oldest in Victoria...

, studying Dutch, Philosophy, Rhetoric, English Language (a course involving translation and criticism of Anglo-Saxon and Middle English texts) and English Literature. He graduated in 1980. He worked as a cleaner and at various other casual jobs, before training as a nurse at Marrickville
Marrickville, New South Wales
Marrickville, a suburb of Sydney's Inner West is located 7 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district in the state of New South Wales, Australia and is the largest suburb in the Marrickville Council local government area...

 and Western Suburbs hospitals in Sydney. He nursed until the mid-1990s. In 1993 he, his second wife and family immigrated to Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

, where they still reside.

Nationality

In Scotland, Faber is considered a Scottish author, or at least "Scottish by formation" (the term defining eligibility to enter the Macallan Short Story Competition, which Faber won in 1996). The fact that most of Faber's literary prizes, like The Neil Gunn
Neil M. Gunn
Neil Miller Gunn was a prolific novelist, critic, and dramatist who emerged as one of the leading lights of the Scottish Renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s...

 Prize, The Macallan Prize and The Saltire First Book of the Year Award, were won in Scotland, that Faber lives in Scotland, and that his works are published by a Scotland-based publisher, all lend credibility to this view. In Australia, Faber is considered an Australian, because of his long residence there, because almost all of his schooling was completed there, and because some of his short stories are set in Australia. In the Netherlands, he is considered Dutch, except by those who are unaware of his origins. (Faber's works are translated into Dutch by professional translators, not by Faber himself.)

In 2001, when the publication of The Crimson Petal and the White
The Crimson Petal and the White
The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber is a 2002 novel set in Victorian-era England.The title is from a 1847 poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson entitled "Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal", the opening line of which is "Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white".-Publication history:Canongate...

was imminent, Canongate urged Faber to become a UK citizen so that the book could be submitted for the Booker Prize
Man Booker Prize
The Man Booker Prize for Fiction is a literary prize awarded each year for the best original full-length novel, written in the English language, by a citizen of the Commonwealth of Nations, Ireland, or Zimbabwe. The winner of the Man Booker Prize is generally assured of international renown and...

, which was at that time open only to authors holding Commonwealth passports. Faber declined, as he did not wish to become British at a time when the British government was preparing to follow the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 into war on Afghanistan and Iraq. Faber's citizenship remains Dutch. He identifies himself as no particular nationality, and the themes, scope and style of his literary work are not characteristically British, Australian or Dutch, but broadly European.

Fiction

Faber wrote seriously from the age of fourteen, but did not submit his manuscripts for publication. Many of the short stories that appeared in his debut collection, as well as earlier drafts of The Crimson Petal and the White
The Crimson Petal and the White
The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber is a 2002 novel set in Victorian-era England.The title is from a 1847 poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson entitled "Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal", the opening line of which is "Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white".-Publication history:Canongate...

, were completed during the 1980s and stored away. Another novel completed in this period, A Photograph Of Jesus, remains unissued. During the 1990s, with the encouragement of his second wife, Eva, Faber began entering – and winning – short story competitions. This led to him being approached by the Edinburgh-based publishers Canongate Books
Canongate Books
Canongate Books is a Scottish independent publishing firm based in Edinburgh; it is named for The Canongate, an area of the city. It is most recognised for publishing the Booker Prizewinner Life of Pi...

, who have published his work in the UK ever since.

Faber's first published book was a collection of short stories, Some Rain Must Fall, issued in 1998
1998 in literature
The year 1998 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*March 5 - Tennessee Williams' 1938 play, Not About Nightingales, receives its stage première....

. Of these stories, the title piece had won the Ian St James Award in 1996, ‘Fish’ had won the Macallan Prize in 1996, and ‘Half A Million Pounds And A Miracle’ had won the Neil Gunn Award in 1997.

The first of Faber’s novels to be published was Under the Skin
Under the Skin (novel)
Under the Skin is a novel by Michel Faber, his first full-length novel. It is set in northern Scotland. It was shortlisted for the 2000 Whitbread Award.-Plot:...

(2000
2000 in literature
The year 2000 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* February 13 - Final original Peanuts comic strip is published...

), written in, and inspired by, the Scottish Highlands. Like much of Faber’s work, it defies easy categorisation, combining elements of the science fiction, horror and thriller genres, handled with sufficient depth and nuance to win almost unanimous praise from literary critics. It was translated into many languages (17 by 2004) and secured his reputation in Europe, as well as being shortlisted for the Whitbread
Costa Book Awards
The Costa Book Awards are a series of literary awards given to books by authors based in Great Britain and Ireland. They were known as the Whitbread Book Awards until 2005, after which Costa Coffee, a subsidiary of Whitbread, took over sponsorship....

 First Novel Award.

Faber’s second published novel was The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps (2001), set in Whitby. The original hardback edition included digitally manipulated colour photographs; these were absent from subsequent reissues. Radically different from Under The Skin in tone and theme, The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps attracted mixed reviews.

Faber’s third published novel was The Courage Consort (2002), about an a cappella
A cappella
A cappella music is specifically solo or group singing without instrumental sound, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. It is the opposite of cantata, which is accompanied singing. A cappella was originally intended to differentiate between Renaissance polyphony and Baroque concertato...

 vocal group rehearsing a piece of avant-garde music
Avant-garde music
Avant-garde music is a term used to characterize music which is thought to be ahead of its time, i.e. containing innovative elements or fusing different genres....

.

In 2002
2002 in literature
The year 2002 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*March 16: Authorities in Saudi Arabia arrested and jailed poet Abdul Mohsen Musalam and fired a newspaper editor following the publication of Musalam's poem The Corrupt on Earth that criticized the state's Islamic...

, Faber's 850-page The Crimson Petal and the White
The Crimson Petal and the White
The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber is a 2002 novel set in Victorian-era England.The title is from a 1847 poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson entitled "Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal", the opening line of which is "Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white".-Publication history:Canongate...

was published. Set in 1870s London and principally concerning a 19-year-old prostitute called Sugar, it was described by some critics as postmodern while others echoed the assertion (made in an early review) that it was "the novel that Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...

 might have written had he been allowed to speak freely". Twenty years in the writing, the book showed Faber's admiration for Dickens's prose and George Eliot
George Eliot
Mary Anne Evans , better known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, journalist and translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era...

's narrative architecture, but its themes were informed by feminism
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...

, post-Freud
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...

ian awareness of sexual pathology, and post-Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...

ian class analysis, as well as by unrestricted access to Victorian pornographic texts that had been suppressed until the late 20th century. The Crimson Petal and the White was a bestseller in the USA, Italy, France, Holland and Belgium, and a steady seller in most other countries.

In 2004, as part of the Authors on the Frontline project, Faber travelled to Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

 with Médecins Sans Frontières
Médecins Sans Frontières
' , or Doctors Without Borders, is a secular humanitarian-aid non-governmental organization best known for its projects in war-torn regions and developing countries facing endemic diseases. Its headquarters are in Geneva, Switzerland...

, to witness MSF's intervention in the HIV
HIV
Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...

/AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...

 epidemic there. [see: Work: Journalism section below]. Faber wrote an article for The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...

, published in January 2005. MSF had originally contracted each of the 14 authors involved in the project also to produce a piece of fiction, inspired by their frontline experience but not necessarily on the subjects dealt with in their Sunday Times article. These stories were to be published in an anthology, but MSF’s negotiations with the intended publisher broke down before most of the authors had begun their fictional pieces. Faber’s story, ‘Bye Bye Natalia’, was eventually published in the July 2006 edition of Granta
Granta
Granta is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centers on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story’s supreme ability to describe, illuminate and make real." In 2007, The Observer stated, "In its blend of...

 and then chosen for inclusion in the 2008 edition of The O. Henry Prize
O. Henry Award
The O. Henry Award is the only yearly award given to short stories of exceptional merit. The award is named after the American master of the form, O. Henry....

 Stories
, an annual anthology dedicated to writers who are deemed to have made "a major contribution to the art of the short story".

Faber’s second collection of short stories The Fahrenheit Twins was published in 2005
2005 in literature
The year 2005 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*February 25 - Canada Reads selects Rockbound by Frank Parker Day as the novel to be read across the nation....

. Its opening story, ‘The Safehouse’, won second place in the inaugural National Short Story Prize (since renamed the BBC National Short Story Award) in 2005.

Wary of being pigeonholed, particularly in the USA where The Crimson Petal and the White is by far his most popular work, Faber vowed never to write a sequel to his bestselling Victorian novel. However, he did write a number of short stories featuring characters from The Crimson Petal and the White, in scenarios that pre-dated or post-dated the events of the novel. While not a sequel (the novel’s controversial ending was allowed to remain definitive and the fates of the heroines Sugar and Agnes were left undisclosed), the stories offered additional perspectives on some of the characters’ past and future lives. Issued first in Italy, by Faber’s long-term Italian publishers Einaudi, the stories were issued by Canongate in 2006, as The Apple.

Faber’s latest novel, titled The Fire Gospel, was published in 2008 as part of the Canongate Myth Series
Canongate Myth Series
Canongate Myth Series is a series of short novels in which ancient myths from myriad cultures are reimagined and rewritten by contemporary authors. The project was conceived in 1999 by Jamie Byng, owner of the independent foundation Scottish publisher Canongate Books, and the first three titles in...

. Inspired by the myth of Prometheus
Prometheus
In Greek mythology, Prometheus is a Titan, the son of Iapetus and Themis, and brother to Atlas, Epimetheus and Menoetius. He was a champion of mankind, known for his wily intelligence, who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to mortals...

, it tells the story of a scholar of Aramaic called Theo, who steals an ancient 'gospel' describing the death of Jesus, from a bombed museum in Iraq. One theme of the book is a gentle satire of the publishing industry.

In 2009, he donated the short story Walking After Midnight to Oxfam's 'Ox-Tales
Ox-Tales
Ox-Tales refers to four anthologies of short stories written by 38 of the UK's best known authors. All the authors donated their stories to Oxfam...

' project, four collections of UK stories written by 38 authors. His story was published in the 'Water' collection.

Journalism

In the years 2001 to 2004, Faber reviewed books for the Scotland on Sunday
Scotland on Sunday
Scotland on Sunday is a Scottish Sunday newspaper, published in Edinburgh by The Scotsman Publications Ltd and consequently assuming the role of Sunday sister to its daily stablemate The Scotsman...

newspaper. Throughout 2004, he wrote a regular feature for The Sunday Herald
Sunday Herald
The Sunday Herald is a Scottish Sunday newspaper launched on 7 February 1999. The ABC audited circulation in April 2011 showed sales of 31,123.From the start it has combined a centre-left stance with support for Scottish devolution...

called ‘Image Conscious’, analysing the layers of meaning, intent and association in various photographs. Since 2003, he has reviewed for The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

, mainly choosing foreign fiction in translation, short story collections, graphic novel
Graphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...

s and books about music.

In 2004, Faber travelled to Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

 with Médecins Sans Frontières
Médecins Sans Frontières
' , or Doctors Without Borders, is a secular humanitarian-aid non-governmental organization best known for its projects in war-torn regions and developing countries facing endemic diseases. Its headquarters are in Geneva, Switzerland...

, as part of MSF’s ‘Authors On The Frontline’ project. In this project, 14 authors visited MSF projects in remote parts of the world, witnessed the emergency medical care MSF delivers, and wrote an article for The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...

 Magazine about it. Faber’s Sunday Times article, ‘Heart of Darkness’, concerned the HIV
HIV
Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...

/AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...

 epidemic in Ukraine and was published on 9 January 2005.

In 2006, Faber contributed an essay, ‘Dreams in the Dumpster, Language Down the Drain’, to Not One More Death (Verso/Stop The War Coalition), a collection of pieces examining US and UK involvement in the Iraq War.

Adaptations

A four-part adaptation of The Crimson Petal and the White was shown by the BBC in 2011, which starred Romola Garai
Romola Garai
Romola Sadie Garai is an English actress. She is known for appearing in the movies Amazing Grace, Atonement, and Glorious 39, and for appearing in the BBC adaptation of Emma.-Early life:...

, Chris O'Dowd
Chris O'Dowd
Chris O'Dowd is an Irish comedian and actor. He is best known for playing Roy Trenneman in British sitcom The IT Crowd...

, Richard E. Grant
Richard E. Grant
Richard E. Grant is a Swaziland-born British actor, screenwriter and director. His most notable role came in the film Withnail and I. He holds dual British and Swazi citizenship.-Early life:...

 and Gillian Anderson
Gillian Anderson
Gillian Leigh Anderson is an American actress.After beginning her career in theatre, Anderson achieved international recognition for her role as Special Agent Dana Scully on the American television series The X-Files. During the show's nine seasons, Anderson won Emmy, Golden Globe, and Screen...

.

The Courage Consort has been adapted for radio twice, by the BBC (UK) and the ABC (Australia).

A film version of Under The Skin, directed by Jonathan Glazer
Jonathan Glazer
Jonathan Glazer is an English director of films, commercials and music videos.-Biography:After studying theatre design at Nottingham Trent University, Glazer started out directing theatre and making film and television trailers, including award-winning work for the BBC...

, starring Scarlett Johansson
Scarlett Johansson
Scarlett Johansson is an American actress, model and singer.Johansson made her film debut in North and was later nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead for her performance in Manny & Lo . She rose to further prominence with her roles in The Horse Whisperer and Ghost World...

, is in production and due for release release in July 2012.

Novels

  • Under the Skin
    Under the Skin (novel)
    Under the Skin is a novel by Michel Faber, his first full-length novel. It is set in northern Scotland. It was shortlisted for the 2000 Whitbread Award.-Plot:...

    (2000)
  • The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps (2001)
  • The Courage Consort (2002)
  • The Crimson Petal and the White
    The Crimson Petal and the White
    The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber is a 2002 novel set in Victorian-era England.The title is from a 1847 poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson entitled "Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal", the opening line of which is "Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white".-Publication history:Canongate...

    (2002)
  • The Fire Gospel (2008)

Short fiction

  • Some Rain Must Fall (1998)
  • The Fahrenheit Twins (2005)
  • Bye Bye Natalia (2006) collected in Granta 94 - On the Road Again: Where Travel Writing Went Next
    Granta
    Granta is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centers on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story’s supreme ability to describe, illuminate and make real." In 2007, The Observer stated, "In its blend of...

  • The Apple (2006)
  • Walking After Midnight (2009) collected in Ox-Tales: Water
    Ox-Tales
    Ox-Tales refers to four anthologies of short stories written by 38 of the UK's best known authors. All the authors donated their stories to Oxfam...


Non-fiction

  • Dreams in the Dumpster, Language Down the Drain (2006) collected in Not One More Death

External links

  • http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bookshow/stories/2008/2428975.htm Transcript of interview with Ramona Koval
    Ramona Koval
    Ramona Koval is an Australian broadcaster, writer and journalist.Her parents were Yiddish-speaking survivors of the Holocaust who arrived in Melbourne from Poland in 1950....

    , The Book Show
    The Book Show
    The Book Show is an Australian ABC radio program for the discussion of everything relating to the written word. It is broadcast live around Australia on Radio National with a daily weekday morning show which is then replayed nightly and also has a Sunday evening show. The show is hosted by Ramona...

    , ABC Radio National, on The Fire Gospel, 25/11/08.
  • Faber at Canongate
  • 3:AM Magazine Interview
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