David Mitchell

David Mitchell has written nine novels and adapted his work for screen and stage. He was born in 1969 on the Lancashire coast, but was raised in Malvern, Worcestershire

He is the author of the novels Ghostwritten, number9dream, Cloud Atlas, Black Swan Green, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, The Bone Clocks, Slade House and Utopia Avenue. He has been shortlisted twice for the Booker Prize, won the John Llewellyn Rhys, Geoffrey Faber Memorial and South Bank Show Literature Prizes, among others, and has been named a Granta Best Young British Novelist.

As a child, Mitchell didn’t speak until age five, after which he developed a stammer. As a result, his childhood was often one of solitude, which meant he spent a lot of time alone with his head in a book. He spent his formative years reading J.R.R. Tolkien, Isaac Asimov and Ursula K. Le Guin. Mitchell went on to complete a degree in English and American literature at the University of Kent and an MA in comparative literature, after which he taught English in Japan before dedicating himself to writing.

He was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2001 with his novel number9dream. But it was Cloud Atlas, Mitchell’s third book, that was his breakthrough. Published in 2004, it was shortlisted for the Booker that year and was listed for multiple other awards. The novel was acclaimed by critics and the literary community, too.

Mitchell has now been longlisted for the Booker Prize five times. In 2018, he won the Sunday Times Award for Literary Excellence, given in recognition of a writer’s entire body of work. He lives in Ireland with his family.