Alan Hollinghurst

Sir Alan James Hollinghurst (born 26 May 1954) is an English novelist, poet, short story writer and translator. He won the 1989 Somerset Maugham Award and the 1994 James Tait Black Memorial Prize. In 2004, he won the Booker Prize for his novel The Line of Beauty. Hollinghurst is credited with having helped gay-themed fiction to break into the literary mainstream through his seven novels since 1988.^[1]

Sir Alan Hollinghurst
Alan Hollinghurst at the 2025 Edinburgh International Book Festival
Born	Alan James Hollinghurst (1954-05-26) 26 May 1954 (age 71) Stroud, Gloucestershire, England, United Kingdom
Occupation	Writer, translator
Alma mater	Magdalen College, Oxford (BA, MLitt)
Period	1975–
Genre	Novel, poem, short story
Notable works	The Swimming-Pool Library The Folding Star The Spell The Line of Beauty The Stranger's Child The Sparsholt Affair Our Evenings
Notable awards	Newdigate Prize 1974 Stonewall Book Award 1989 Somerset Maugham Award 1989 James Tait Black Memorial Prize 1994 Booker Prize 2004

Early life and education

Hollinghurst was born in Stroud, Gloucestershire, only child of bank manager James Hollinghurst, who served in the RAF in the Second World War,^[2] and his wife, Elizabeth.^[3][4] He attended Dorset's Canford School.^[5]

He studied English at Magdalen College, Oxford, receiving a BA in 1975 and MLitt in 1979. His thesis was on works by three gay writers: Ronald Firbank, E. M. Forster and L. P. Hartley.^[6][7] He house-shared at Oxford with future poet laureate Andrew Motion, and was awarded poetry's Newdigate Prize, a year before Motion. In the late 1970s he lectured at Magdalen, then at Somerville and Corpus Christi. In 1981 he lectured at UCL, and in 1982 joined The Times Literary Supplement, serving as deputy editor from 1985 to 1990.^[8][9]

Hollinghurst discussed his early life and literary influences at length in a rare interview at home in London, published in The James White Review in 1997–98.^[10]

Writing

He won the 2004 Booker Prize for The Line of Beauty.^[11] His next novel, The Stranger's Child, made the 2011 Booker Prize longlist.^[12]

The Guardian has called Hollinghurst "one of the great writers of our time."^[13] The Sunday Times has stated "at the sentence level, Hollinghurst remains an English stylist without obvious living equal."^[14]

Personal life

Hollinghurst is gay^[15][2][11] and lives in London.^[16] In 2018 he lived with the non-binary writer Paul Mendez,^[17] though the two are now separated.^[18] Hollinghurst previously said: "I'm not at all easy to live with. I wish I could integrate writing into ordinary social life, but I don't seem to be able to. I could when I started [writing]. I suppose I had more energy then. Now I have to isolate myself for long periods."^[19]

Awards and honours

• 1974: Newdigate Prize^[20]
• 1989: Somerset Maugham Award, for The Swimming-Pool Library^[21]
• 1989: Stonewall Book Award, for The Swimming-Pool Library^[22]
• 1994: James Tait Black Memorial Prize, for The Folding Star^[23]
• 1995: Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature^[24]
• 2004: Booker Prize, for The Line of Beauty^[11]
• 2011: Booker Prize, longlist for The Stranger's Child^[12]
• 2011: Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement from Publishing Triangle^[25]

List of works

Alan Hollinghurst talks about his novel The Stranger's Child on Bookbits radio.

Poetry

• Isherwood is at Santa Monica (Sycamore Broadsheet 22: two poems, hand-printed on a single folded sheet), Oxford: Sycamore Press 1975^[26]
• Poetry Introduction 4 (ten poems: "Over the Wall", "Nightfall", "Survey", "Christmas Day at Home", "The Drowned Field", "Alonso", "Isherwood is at Santa Monica", "Ben Dancing at Wayland's Smithy", "Convalescence in Lower Largo", "The Well"), Faber and Faber, 1978 ISBN 9780571111435
• Confidential Chats with Boys, Oxford: Sycamore Press 1982 (based on the book Confidential Chats with Boys by William Lee Howard, MD., 1911, Sydney, Australia)^[27]
• "Mud" (London Review of Books, Vol. 4, No. 19, 21 October 1982)^[28]

Short stories

• A Thieving Boy (Firebird 2: Writing Today, Penguin, 1983)^[29]
• Sharps and Flats (Granta 43, 1993), was incorporated into Hollinghurst's second novel, The Folding Star^[30]
• Highlights (Granta 100, 2007)^[31]

Novels

• The Swimming-Pool Library, 1988 ISBN 9780679722564
• The Folding Star, 1994 ISBN 9780099476917
• The Spell, 1998 ISBN 9780099276944
• The Line of Beauty, 2004 ISBN 9780330483216
• The Stranger's Child, 2011 ISBN 9780330483278
• The Sparsholt Affair, 2017 ISBN 9781447208228
• Our Evenings, 2024^[32] ISBN 9781447208235

Translations

• Bajazet by Jean Racine, Chatto & Windus, 1991 ISBN 9780701138530
• Bérénice and Bajazet by Jean Racine, Faber and Faber, 2012 ISBN 9780571299089

As editor

• New Writing 4 (with A. S. Byatt), 1995 ISBN 9780099532316
• A. E. Housman: poems selected by Alan Hollinghurst, Faber and Faber, 2001 ISBN 9780571207053

Foreword

• Three Novels by Ronald Firbank, 2000 ISBN 9780141182193