William Boyd (writer)

Scottish novelist, short story writer, and screen writer (born 1952)

William Boyd

CBE FRSL

Boyd in 2009

Born| William Andrew Murray Boyd
(1952-03-07) 7 March 1952 (age 72)
Accra, Gold Coast
Occupation|

* Novelist
* short story writer
* screenwriter

Language| English
Nationality| British
Education|

* University of Nice
* University of Glasgow (M.A. Hons)
* Jesus College, Oxford (did not graduate)[1]

Notable works|

* A Good Man in Africa
* Any Human Heart

Notable awards| Grand prix des lectrices de Elle
Website
www.williamboyd.co.uk

William Andrew Murray Boyd CBE FRSL (born 7 March 1952) is a British[2][3] novelist, short story writer and screenwriter.

## Biography

[edit]

Boyd was born in Accra, Gold Coast (present-day Ghana),[4] to Scottish parents, both from Fife, and has two younger sisters. His father Alexander, a doctor specialising in tropical medicine, and Boyd's mother, who was a teacher, moved to the Gold Coast in 1950 to run the health clinic at the University College of the Gold Coast, Legon (now the University of Ghana). In the early 1960s, the family moved to western Nigeria, where Boyd's father held a similar position at the University of Ibadan.[5][6] Boyd spent his early life in Ghana and Nigeria[4] and, at the age of nine, went to a preparatory school and then to Gordonstoun school in Scotland,[6] and, after that, to the University of Nice in France, followed by the University of Glasgow, where he gained an M.A. (Hons) in English & Philosophy, and finally Jesus College, Oxford. His father died of a rare disease when Boyd was 26.

Between 1980 and 1983, Boyd was a lecturer in English at St Hilda's College, Oxford, and it was while he was there that his first novel, A Good Man in Africa (1981), was published. He was also a television critic for the New Statesman between 1981 and 1983.[5]

Boyd was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2005 for services to literature. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and an Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He has been presented with honorary Doctorates in Literature from the universities of St. Andrews, Stirling, Glasgow, and Dundee[4] and is an honorary fellow of Jesus College, Oxford.[7] Boyd is a member of the Chelsea Arts Club.[8]

Boyd met his wife Susan, a former editor and now a screenwriter, while they were both at Glasgow University. He has a house in Chelsea, London, and a farmhouse and vineyard (with its own appellation Château Pecachard) in Bergerac in the Dordogne in south-west France.[5]

In August 2014, Boyd was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian opposing Scottish independence in the run-up to September's referendum on that issue.[9]

## Work

[edit]

### Novels

[edit]

Boyd was selected in 1983 as one of the 20 "Best of Young British Novelists" in a promotion run by Granta magazine and the Book Marketing Council. Boyd's novels include: A Good Man in Africa, a study of a disaster-prone British diplomat operating in West Africa, for which he won the Whitbread Book award and Somerset Maugham Award in 1981; An Ice-Cream War, set against the background of the World War I campaigns in colonial East Africa, which won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1982; Brazzaville Beach, published in 1991, which follows a scientist researching chimpanzee behaviour in Africa; and Any Human Heart, written in the form of the journals of a fictitious male 20th-century British writer, which won the Prix Jean Monnet de Littérature Européenne and was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2002. Restless, the tale of a young woman who discovers that her mother had been recruited as a spy during World War II, was published in 2006 and won the Novel of the Year award in the 2006 Costa Book Awards. Boyd's novel Waiting for Sunrise was published in 2012.[10] Following Solo in 2013, Sweet Caress was published in 2015, the fourth novel Boyd has written from a woman's viewpoint. His sixteenth novel, Trio, was published in 2020.[citation needed]

#### Solo, the James Bond novel

[edit]

In April 2012, Ian Fleming's estate announced that Boyd would write the next James Bond novel.[11] The book, Solo, is set in 1969; it was published in the UK by Jonathan Cape in September 2013. Boyd used Bond creator Ian Fleming as a character in his novel Any Human Heart. Fleming recruits the book's protagonist, Logan Mountstuart, to British Naval Intelligence during World War Two.[12]

### Short stories

[edit]

Several collections of short stories by Boyd have been published, including On the Yankee Station (1981), The Destiny of Nathalie 'X' (1995), Fascination (2004) and The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth (2017). In his introduction to The Dream Lover (2008), Boyd says that he believes the short story form to have been key to his evolution as a writer.[13]

### Screenplays

[edit]

As a screenwriter,, Boyd has written several feature film and television productions. The feature films include: Scoop (1987), adapted from the Evelyn Waugh novel; Stars and Bars (1988), adapted from Boyd's own novel; Mister Johnson (1990), based on the 1939 novel by Joyce Cary; Tune in Tomorrow (1990), based on the Mario Vargas Llosa novel Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter; A Good Man in Africa (1994), also adapted from his own novel; The Trench (1999) an independent war film which he also directed; Man to Man (2005), a historical drama which was nominated for a Golden Bear award at the Berlin International Film Festival; and Sword of Honour, based on the Sword of Honour trilogy of novels by Evelyn Waugh. He was one of several writers who worked on Chaplin (1992). His television screenwriting credits include: Good and Bad at Games (1983), adapted from Boyd's short story about English public school life; Dutch Girls (1985); Armadillo (2001), adapted from his own novel; A Waste of Shame (2005) about Shakespeare's composition of his sonnets; Any Human Heart (2010), adapted from Boyd's own novel into a Channel 4 series starring Jim Broadbent, which won the 2011 Best Drama Serial BAFTA award; and Restless (2012), also adapted from his own novel. Boyd created the miniseries Spy City which aired in 2020.[14]

### Plays

[edit]

Boyd adapted two Anton Chekhov short stories – "A Visit to Friends" and "My Life (The Story of a Provincial)"[15] – to create the play Longing. Directed by Nina Raine and performed at London's Hampstead Theatre, the play starred Jonathan Bailey, Tamsin Greig, Natasha Little, Eve Ponsonby, John Sessions and Catrin Stewart. Previews began on 28 February 2013; the press night was on 7 March 2013.[16][17] Boyd, who was theatre critic for the University of Glasgow in the 1970s and has many actor friends, refers to his ambition to write a play as finally getting "this monkey off my back".[17] A further play by Boyd, The Argument, described as a Strindberg-like take on human dynamics,[18] was performed at Hampstead Theatre Downstairs in March 2016.[19] Both plays were published by Methuen Drama (see Bibliography).

### Non-fiction

[edit]

Protobiography, an autobiographical work by Boyd that recalls his early childhood, was published initially in 1998 by Bridgewater Press in a limited edition. A paperback edition was published in 2005 by Penguin Books.[20] A collection of Boyd's journalism and other non-fiction writing was published in 2005 as Bamboo.

## Nat Tate hoax

[edit]

Main article: Nat Tate: An American Artist 1928–1960

In 1998, Boyd published Nat Tate: An American Artist 1928–1960, which presents the paintings and tragic biography of a supposed New York-based 1950s abstract expressionist painter named Nat Tate, who actually never existed and was, along with his paintings, a creation of Boyd's. When the book was initially published, it was not revealed that it was a work of fiction, and some were duped by the hoax; it was launched at a lavish party, with excerpts read by David Bowie and Gore Vidal (both of whom were in on the joke), and a number of prominent members of the art world claimed to remember the artist. It caused quite a stir once the truth was revealed.[21] The name "Nat Tate" is derived from the names of the two leading British art galleries: the National Gallery and the Tate Gallery. Boyd, who also paints, made artwork under the pseudonym of Nat Tate and sent it to auction, where it raised funds for an art charity. Nat Tate also appears in Any Human Heart, also by Boyd, with a wry footnote to the 1998 book.

## Bibliography

[edit]

This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. (July 2021)

|

### Novels

[edit]

* A Good Man in Africa; Hamish Hamilton, 1981
* An Ice-Cream War; Hamish Hamilton, 1982
* Stars and Bars; Hamish Hamilton, 1984
* The New Confessions; Hamish Hamilton, 1987
* Brazzaville Beach; Sinclair-Stevenson, 1990
* The Blue Afternoon; Sinclair-Stevenson, 1993
* Armadillo; Hamish Hamilton, 1998
* Nat Tate: An American Artist 1928–1960; 21 Publishing, 1998
* Any Human Heart; Hamish Hamilton, 2002
* Restless; Bloomsbury, 2006
* Ordinary Thunderstorms; Bloomsbury, 2009
* Waiting for Sunrise; Bloomsbury, 2012
* Solo; Jonathan Cape, 2013
* Sweet Caress; Bloomsbury, 2015
* Love is Blind; Viking Penguin, 2018
* Trio; Viking Penguin, 2020
* The Romantic; Viking Penguin, 2022
* Gabriel's Moon; Viking Penguin, 2024

#### Unpublished

[edit]

* Against the Day[22][23]
* Truelove at 29[24]

### Short-story collections

[edit]

* On the Yankee Station; Hamish Hamilton, 1981
* The Destiny of Nathalie 'X'; Sinclair-Stevenson, 1995
* Fascination; Hamish Hamilton, 2004
* The Dream Lover; Bloomsbury, 2008. This combines the short story collections in On the Yankee Station (1981) and The Destiny of Nathalie 'X' (1995)
* The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth; Viking Press, 2017. This includes "The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth" (short story), first published in Notes from the Underground, 2007[25]

### Plays

[edit]

* School Ties; Hamish Hamilton, 1985
* Longing (based on two Anton Chekhov stories); Methuen Drama, 2013
* The Argument; Methuen Drama, 2016

### Screenplays

[edit]

* Good and Bad at Games (1983)
* Dutch Girls (1985)
* Scoop (1987)
* Stars and Bars (1988)
* Mister Johnson (1990)
* Tune in Tomorrow (1990)
* Chaplin (1992)
* A Good Man in Africa (1994)
* The Trench (1999)
* Armadillo (2001)
* Sword of Honour (2001)
* Man to Man (2005)
* A Waste of Shame (2005)
* Any Human Heart (2010)
* Restless (2012)
* Spy City (2020)

### Radio

[edit]

* The McFeggan Offensive, 2020

### Non-fiction

[edit]

* Protobiography; Bridgewater Press, 1998 (limited edition)
* Bamboo; Hamish Hamilton, 2005

|

### Book reviews

[edit]

Year  | Review article  | Work(s) reviewed

|
|

2020  | Boyd, William (3–23 April 2020). "Teacher, chancer, survivor, spy". The Critics. Books. New Statesman. 149 (5514): 70–71. | Rée, Harry. Rée, Jonathan (ed.). A schoolmaster's war: Harry Rée, British agent in the French Resistance. Yale UP.

## Literary prizes and awards

[edit]

* 1981 Whitbread First Novel Award for A Good Man in Africa
* 1982 Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for An Ice-Cream War
* 1982 Somerset Maugham Award for A Good Man in Africa
* 1983 Selected as one of the 20 "Best of Young British Novelists" by Granta magazine and the Book Marketing Council
* 1990 James Tait Black Memorial Prize (for fiction) for Brazzaville Beach
* 1991 McVitie's Prize for Scottish Writer of the Year for Brazzaville Beach
* 1993 The Sunday Express Book of the Year for The Blue Afternoon
* 1995 Los Angeles Times Book Prize (Fiction) for The Blue Afternoon
* 2003 Prix Jean Monnet de Littérature Européenne for Any Human Heart[26]
* 2003 Grand prix des lectrices de Elle for  À livre ouvert, French language edition of Any Human Heart
* 2004 Shortlisted for International Dublin Literary Award for Any Human Heart
* 2006 Costa Book Award for Restless
* 2007 Shortlisted for British Book Awards Richard & Judy Best Read of the Year for Restless

## References

[edit]

1. ^ D'Angour, Armand. "William Boyd: Going Solo". Jesus College Record 2014, p. 37. Retrieved 10 February 2024.
2. ^ "The SRB Interview: William Boyd". Scottish Review of Books. 28 October 2009. Retrieved 6 April 2018.
3. ^ Clements, Toby (3 September 2006). "A writer's life: William Boyd". The Sunday Telegraph. Retrieved 13 March 2018.
4. ^ a b c "William Boyd – Biography". williamboyd.co.uk. Retrieved 4 March 2012.
5. ^ a b c Norman, Neil (14 January 2007). "William Boyd: A good man in Chelsea". The Independent. Retrieved 10 March 2018.
6. ^ a b Brown, Mick (4 February 2012). "The master storyteller: William Boyd interview". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 11 March 2018.[dead link‍]
7. ^ "Emeritus Fellows", The Jesus College Record 2011, p. 21, Jesus College, Oxford. Retrieved 11 March 2018.
8. ^ "Chelsea Arts Club secretary signs off with 'lunatic' plea". Evening Standard. London. 17 January 2013. Retrieved 15 February 2017.
9. ^ "Celebrities' open letter to Scotland – full text and list of signatories". The Guardian. 7 August 2014. Retrieved 26 August 2014.
10. ^ Kirby, A. J. (17 April 2012). "Waiting for Sunrise: A Novel". New York Journal of Books. Retrieved 10 March 2018.
11. ^ "William Boyd to write new James Bond book". ITV News. 12 April 2012. Retrieved 9 March 2018.
12. ^ Lang, Kirsty (27 December 2012). "James Bond author William Boyd on Restless, and the spy who thrilled him". Radio Times. Retrieved 10 March 2018.
13. ^ Thorpe, Vanessa (2 March 2008). "Too good to be true". The Observer. Retrieved 11 March 2018.
14. ^ Bonaime, Ross (23 March 2021). "Dominic Cooper Delivers '60s Swagger in First Images From AMC+ Espionage Drama 'Spy City'". Collider.
15. ^ Snetiker, Marc (4 January 2013). "Tamsin Greig and John Sessions to Lead William Boyd's Longing in London". Broadway.com. Retrieved 10 March 2018.
16. ^ "Main Stage: Longing". Hampstead Theatre. Archived from the original on 14 January 2013. Retrieved 10 March 2018.
17. ^ a b Mesure, Susie (16 December 2012). "William Boyd: The man who knows the real 007". The Independent on Sunday. Retrieved 10 March 2018.
18. ^ "The Argument". Bloomsbury Publishing. 2016. Retrieved 14 March 2018.
19. ^ "The Argument". Hampstead Theatre. 2016. Retrieved 14 March 2018.
20. ^ "Protobiography". London: Curtis Brown. 2005. Retrieved 15 March 2018.
21. ^ "Bowie and Boyd "hoax" art world". BBC News. 7 April 1998. Retrieved 11 March 2007.
22. ^ Boyd 2008, pp. 4–5.
23. ^ Tayler, Christopher (12 September 2009). "A life in writing: William Boyd". The Guardian. Retrieved 12 March 2018.
24. ^ Boyd 2008, p. 5.
25. ^ Frejdh, Anders (7 January 2013). "UK Release of William Boyd's 007 Novel: Solo". From Sweden With Love. Retrieved 10 April 2020.
26. ^ Prix Jean Monnet List of laureates

## Sources

[edit]

* Boyd, William (2008). "Author's introduction". The Dream Lover. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 9780747592297.

## Further reading

[edit]

* Blau, Eleanor (21 May 1983). "New Territory for Explorer in Fiction". The New York Times. Retrieved 10 March 2018.
* Boyd, William (2 October 2004). "Brief Encounters (on the art of writing short stories)". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 March 2018.
* Boyd, William (10 July 2006). "A short history of the short story". Prospect magazine. Retrieved 10 March 2018.
* Boyd, William (3 September 2006). "My Week". The Observer. Retrieved 10 March 2018.
* Boyd, William (24 December 2017). "Bethany on Jura by William Boyd: an original short story". The Observer. Retrieved 13 March 2018.
* Clements, Toby (3 September 2006). "A writer's life". The Sunday Telegraph. Retrieved 10 March 2018.
* Gerrard, Nicci (12 September 1999). "Boyd's own story". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 March 2018.
* Tayler, Christopher (12 September 2009). "A life in writing: William Boyd". The Guardian. Retrieved 12 March 2018.
* Testard, Jacques; Summerscale, Tristan (June 2011). "Interview with William Boyd". The White Review. Retrieved 10 March 2018.

## External links

[edit]

Wikiquote has quotations related to William Boyd (writer).

Wikimedia Commons has media related to William Boyd (writer).

* Official website
* William Boyd page on Penguin UK
* William Boyd at British Council: Literature
* William Boyd at IMDb
* Archival material at Leeds University Library

* v
* t
* e

Works by William Boyd

Novels|

* A Good Man in Africa (1981)
* An Ice-Cream War (1982)
* Stars and Bars (1984)
* The New Confessions (1987)
* Brazzaville Beach (1990)
* The Blue Afternoon (1993)
* Armadillo (1998)
* Nat Tate (1998)
* Any Human Heart (2002)
* Restless (2006)
* Ordinary Thunderstorms (2009)
* Waiting for Sunrise (2012)
* Solo (2013)
* Sweet Caress (2015)
* Love is Blind (2018)
* Trio (2020)
* The Romantic (2022)
* Gabriel's Moon (2024)

Short story collections|

* On the Yankee Station (1981)
* The Destiny of Nathalie 'X' (1995)
* Fascination (2004)
* The Dream Lover (2008)
* The Dreams of Bethany Mellmoth (2017)

Screenplays|

* Good and Bad at Games (1983)
* Dutch Girls (1985)
* Scoop (1987)
* Stars and Bars (1988)
* Mister Johnson (1990)
* Tune in Tomorrow (1990)
* Chaplin (1992)
* A Good Man in Africa (1994)
* The Trench (1999)
* Sword of Honour (2001)
* Armadillo (2001)
* A Waste of Shame (2005)
* Man to Man (2005)
* Any Human Heart (2010)
* Restless (2012)

Plays|

* Longing (2013)
* The Argument (2016)

Non-fiction|

* Protobiography (1998)
* Bamboo (2005)

* v
* t
* e

James Bond in literature

James Bond

James Bond
series|

| Ian Fleming|

* Casino Royale (1953)
* Live and Let Die (1954)
* Moonraker (1955)
* Diamonds Are Forever (1956)
* From Russia, with Love (1957)
* Dr. No (1958)
* Goldfinger (1959)
* For Your Eyes Only (1960)
* Thunderball (1961)
* The Spy Who Loved Me (1962)
* On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1963)
* You Only Live Twice (1964)
* The Man with the Golden Gun (1965)
* Octopussy and The Living Daylights (1966)

|

Kingsley Amis|

* Colonel Sun (1968)

John Gardner|

* Licence Renewed (1981)
* For Special Services (1982)
* Icebreaker (1983)
* Role of Honour (1984)
* Nobody Lives for Ever (1986)
* No Deals, Mr. Bond (1987)
* Scorpius (1988)
* Win, Lose or Die (1989)
* Brokenclaw (1990)
* The Man from Barbarossa (1991)
* Death Is Forever (1992)
* Never Send Flowers (1993)
* SeaFire (1994)
* Cold (1996)

Raymond Benson|

* Zero Minus Ten (1997)
* The Facts of Death (1998)
* High Time to Kill (1999)
* DoubleShot (2000)
* Never Dream of Dying (2001)
* The Man with the Red Tattoo (2002)

Sebastian Faulks|

* Devil May Care (2008)

Jeffery Deaver|

* Carte Blanche (2011)

William Boyd|

* Solo (2013)

Anthony Horowitz|

* Trigger Mortis (2015)
* Forever and a Day (2018)
* With a Mind to Kill (2022)

Novelizations|

| Christopher Wood|

* James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)
* James Bond and Moonraker (1979)

|

Spin-off
works|

| R. D. Mascott|

* The Adventures of James Bond Junior 003½ (1967)

|

John Pearson|

* James Bond: The Authorized Biography of 007 (1973)

Young Bond series|

| Charlie Higson|

* SilverFin (2005)
* Blood Fever (2006)
* Double or Die (2007)
* Hurricane Gold (2007)
* By Royal Command (2008)

|

Steve Cole|

* Shoot to Kill (2014)
* Heads You Die (2016)

The Moneypenny Diaries
Samantha Weinberg|

* Guardian Angel (2005)
* Secret Servant (2006)
* Final Fling (2008)

Unofficial
works|

* Take Over (1970)
* The Killing Zone (1985)

Unpublished
works|

* Per Fine Ounce (1966)

Related
works|

* Double O Seven, James Bond, A Report (1964)
* The James Bond Dossier (1965)
* The Book of Bond (1965)
* The James Bond Bedside Companion (1984)
* The Battle for Bond (2007)
* Danger Society: The Young Bond Dossier (2009)

Related|

* James Bond uncollected short stories
* Bibliography of works on James Bond

Authority control databases

International|

* ISNI
* VIAF
* FAST
* WorldCat

National|

* Germany
* United States
* France
* BnF data
* Italy
* Czech Republic
* Spain
* Netherlands
* Norway
* Latvia
* Korea
* Sweden
* Poland
* Israel
* Catalonia
* Belgium

Academics|

* CiNii

Artists|

* MusicBrainz
* RKD Artists

People|

* Trove
* Deutsche Biographie
* DDB

Other|

* IdRef
* SNAC

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