Will Self



Profile:
Full name: William Self Area of interest: Contemporary culture, Current Affairs, Politics, Male gender issues, London issues

Journals/Organisation: The Independent | Evening Standard

Email:

Personal website: http://www.will-self.com

Website:

Blog: http://will-self.com/category/wills-blog

Representation: http://www.wylieagency.co.uk - for commissions, book rights, etc

Networks: https://twitter.com/#!/wself | http://www.facebook.com/willselfuk



Biography:
About:

Education: University College School, London; Christ's College, London; Exeter College, Oxford: Philosophy

Career: Began writing fiction, working as a cartoonist for the New Statesman and City Limits...
 * see: British Council Contemporary writers (biography)

Current position/role: Columnist


 * also writes/has written for:

Other roles/Main role: Author, Journalist, critic, cartoonist

Other activities:

Disclosures:

Viewpoints/Insight:
 * Guardian.co - the authors Will Self
 * Will-Self.com: Will Self's writing room (A 360 degree view in 71 photos by Phil Grey)
 * BBC News: Self v Littlejohn, 15th June, 2001 (edited transcript)
 * The Daily Telegraph: A writer's life: Will Self, 28th May, 2006
 * Author statement: 'I am fascinated by masculinity and gender. I have a very ambiguous sexual personal life, that's why I am so interested in it. I am a very girly person trapped inside a large, threatening male body. The fast cars and loud music and hard drinking in 'Tough, Tough Toys' are like a suit. I'm trying to deconstruct that image of men.' (Will Self quoted in interview with The Big Issue magazine, 20th April 1998)

Broadcast media: http://will-self.com/category/radio

Video: Regular broadcaster on television and radio
 * IMDb

Controversy/Criticism:

Awards/Honours:
 * Nominated as one of Granta magazine's 20 'Best of Young British Novelists 2', 1993
 * Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize: The Quantity Theory of Insanity, 1991
 * Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize (shortlist): The Butt, 2008

Scoops:

Other: Married to journalist / columnist Deborah Orr



Books & Debate:
✒ Will's page at Amazon✒
 * The Quantity Theory of Insanity (1991)
 * Cock and Bull 1992)
 * My Idea of Fun (1993)
 * Grey Area (1994)
 * Junk Mail (1995)
 * The Sweet Smell of Psychosis (illustrated by Martin Rowson) (1996)
 * Great Apes (1997)
 * Tough, Tough Toys for Tough, Tough Boys (1998)
 * How the Dead Live (2000)
 * Perfidious Man (photographs by David Gamble) (2000)
 * Sore Sites (2000)
 * Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (introduction) (2001)
 * Feeding Frenzy (2001)
 * Dorian (2002)
 * Dr Mukti and Other Tales of Woe (2004)
 * The Book of Dave (2006)
 * Psychogeography (2007) OCLC 154703905
 * The Butt: an Exit Strategy (2008) OCLC 192045616
 * The Undivided Self: selected short stories (2008) OCLC 192045616
 * Liver: a fictional organ with a surface anatomy of four lobes (2009) OCLC 31571046
 * Walking to Hollywood: memories of before the fall (2011) OCLC 751822895

✒ Bloomsbury: author information✒

Latest work: Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2012: The Umbrella OCLC 809184814

Speaking/Appearances: see: Will's diary

Debate: 

Journals:

 * No regular column



Articles:

 * British identity is being rent asunder - The UK housing crisis is part of wider asset transfer from the state to the rich - 17th January 2015
 * Guy Debord's The Society of the Spectacle - Will Self takes a walk through the banlieues of Paris and is astonished by the prescience of Debord's 1967 masterpiece, which so accurately describes 'the shit we're in' - 15th November 2013
 * Socialist Yahoos? Jacob Rees-Mogg can keep whinnying with the Houyhnhnms - Rees-Mogg's egregious slur against the left forgets the beauty of Swift's satire is in providing ammunition for the oppressed - 3rd May 2012



Evening Standard:
Column name:

Remit/Info: Current Affairs and Politics, London issues

Section:

Role: Columnist

Pen-name:

Email:

Website: Standard.co / Will Self

Commissioning editor:

Day published: Wednesday

Regularity: Weekly

Column format:

Average length:



Articles: 2009

 * Your son’s drug ordeal is not fit to print, Julie - I was once on a panel that gave a prestigious award to Julie Myerson for her first novel, Sleepwalking, an elegantly overwrought account of an abused woman who begins a passionate affair - 4th March 2009
 * Come clean, Mr Miliband – tell the truth about torture - Now that Binyam Mohamed has returned to the UK from detention at Guantanamo Bay, there must be quite a few Whitehall mandarins — not to mention some ex-ministers — who are wandering Westminster frantically trying to clean the blood from their hands - 25th February 2009
 * Get off the phone and get on with your lives - Ken Stott may be starring in A View from the Bridge at the Duke of York's but it's what he can hear in the auditorium that's bothering him - 18th February 2009
 * For ****'s sake, the swearing Mayor speaks the language of London - According to a leaked minute, Boris Johnson uttered the most commonly employed fricative expletive no fewer than 10 times during a recent phone conversation with the Home Affairs select committee chairman, Keith Vaz - 13th February 2009
 * It’s not just vicious dogs who need to be leashed - The tragic death of baby Jadon Smith after being attacked by family pets should be taken to heart by all dog owners - 11th February 2009
 * can’t back down on clean air, Boris'' - 4th February 2009
 * day, another doner'' - Despite news this week that kebabs can contain your entire day’s calorie count, one Londoner writes of his addiction to them - 30th January 2009
 * for the new 'Gissa job' generation'' - Back in the early 1980s, Alan Bleasdale's TV drama Boys From the Black Stuff gripped the nation - 28th January 2009
 * off it, Gordon, take over the big banks now'' - 21st January 2009
 * of a new England but our houses tell a different tale'' - Commentators have been quick to seize on the information now online in the 1911 census to paint a picture of a vastly different England - but I'm not so sure - 14th January 2009
 * Siren words on jobs won’t get you off the hook, Gordon - The Prime Minister's New Year's resolution was to take up running again - and, frankly, he'll need every turn of speed he can get to keep ahead of his... - 7th January 2009



Articles: 2008

 * Why I'm now willing to give God a chance - As middle age enfolds me in its musty embrace I'm increasingly preoccupied by the deliberations of the Church of England - 31st December 2008
 * Bring on the Boris chutney empire: that's the way ahead - What we need are useful, productive jobs that genuinely add value to our society, says Will Self - 24th December 2008
 * I've had my fill of cyber life: let's give humans a go - I had a letter this week from the fraud department of a major building society, informing me that someone had tried to open an account in my name, and... - 17th December 2008
 * The Games were just a boom-time boondoggle - At least disgraced tycoon David Ross has had the decency to resign from his position as the Mayor's representative on the Olympic Organising Committee - 10th December 2008
 * Obama's new regime - it's too old school for my taste - There's a strange sense of political limbo here in America at the moment - 3rd December 2008
 * To save the day, Gordon, you have to tax the rich - During the heady days of the boom, I used to opine regularly that the National Lottery was a tax on stupidity, the odds of winning the jackpot being... - 25th November 2008
 * doubts and what we all owe Baby P's memory'' - 18th November 2008
 * £1 each - it's a snip for this glimpse of paradise'' - 14th November 2008
 * banks have buried their heads in the sand'' - 11th November 2008
 * the BBC's faults, we must save the licence fee'' - 4th November 2008
 * these lives lost in Afghanistan - to no purpose'' - Gayle Williams, the British aid worker shot dead by the Taliban, was buried at the weekend, a day after another Briton, David Giles - 28th October 2008
 * Lore: The Legends and Traditions of the World's Most Vibrant City by Steve Roud'' - 23rd October 2008
 * should it be a crime to help a person die?'' - Following the death of Daniel James, the young rugby player whose parents helped him to go to Switzerland for euthanasia, I agree with Mary Warnock:... - 21st October 2008
 * a diehard Leftie but my son is going to private school'' - 14th October 2008
 * 42 days: just a cynical pose on terror'' - Once the House of Lords has debated then rejected the provisions in the new Terrorism Bill for allowing the detention of terrorist suspects for 42 days, it now seems certain that the Prime Minister will simply let the whole thing die - 7th October 2008
 * the Tory high-speed train but duck the flying pigs'' - Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it a great big flying pig? No, it's a brand new high-speed rail link between London and Manchester - 30th September 2008
 * day I learned how to confront street crime'' - 23rd September 2008
 * Times: The Age of Elizabeth II by A. N. Wilson'' - 19th September 2008
 * can only feel anger at the bankers going bust'' - 16th September 2008
 * has done for the bar where I met Bacon'' - I have mixed feelings about the threatened closure of the Colony Room Club in Soho, which comes in the same week that a major exhibition of its most famous member — Francis Bacon — opens at Tate Britain - 9th September 2008
 * one gets my vote in this showbiz US election'' - While I was on holiday my application for an absentee ballot in the general election arrived — the US election, that is - 2nd September 2008
 * have a better Games without all this ballyhoo'' - What an undiluted pleasure it was to see Mayor Boris cock up the flag-handing-over at the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games - 26th August 2008
 * crush on the car is costing us all too dear'' - 19th August 2008
 * My simple plan to make London a real cycling city - 12th August 2008
 * It's your job to stand up to the bigots, Archbishop - 5th August 2008
 * Why the Met must come clean about its cock-ups - 29th July 2008
 * I'm not fooled by Purnell's new welfare conjuring trick - 22nd July 2008
 * The night my street was turned into a crime zone - 18th July 2008
 * Banksy lost his street cred the moment he found fame - 15th July 2008
 * If you want to beat fuel prices just get walking - 8th July 2008
 * Ghaffur is right - the Met still lags behind on race - 1st July 2008
 * Only a true hypocrite has never felt racist - 24th June 2008
 * Boris's Tube ban won't be enough to cure our hangovers - 3rd June 2008
 * If you want to get lost in London, get a sat-nav - 20th May 2008
 * Salute these mothers who have faith in forgiveness - 13th May 2008
 * So farewell to Ken's cappuccino fiefdom - 6th May 2008
 * The Wisdom of Whores: Bureaucrats, Brothels and the Business of Aids by Elizabeth Pisani - 1st May 2008
 * Final proof I've cracked my addiction to motoring - 29th April 2008
 * From bonnets to bulletins, the BBC still does TV best - 22nd April 2008
 * If I feel sorry for Gordon he must be in trouble - 15th April 2008
 * Prison is the last place to help Pete kick his drug habit - 10th April 2008
 * Now it is time to let Diana rest in peace - 8th April 2008
 * Life's still hell for London's motorists - so ditch the car - 1st April 2008
 * Hiding fags just makes kids want them more - 25th March 2008
 * Hard times are here but why should we bail out the fat cats? - 18th March 2008
 * Has Paddick got the puff to run London? - 12th March 2008
 * See this film and share the shame of the Iraq war - 11th March 2008
 * This non-stop nagging won't get any of us off the bottle - 4th March 2008
 * A campaign to talk up tap water - I'll drink to that - 26th February 2008
 * More dossier spin won't hide Brown's Iraq shame - 19th February 2008
 * Nice try Boris, but Heathrow's here to stay - 12th February 2008
 * This US poll isn't about vision: it's the money, stupid - 5th February 2008
 * I can't hack fraternity of exiled smokers, out in the cold - 4th February 2008
 * Good food and jobs are still off the menu at McDonald's - 29th January 2008
 * Does it really matter if Ken has a Scotch first thing? - 22nd January 2008
 * Axe your tree fetish, Boris: it's transport we care about - 15th January 2008
 * If you thought Langham was a one-off, think again - 8th January 2008



The Independent:
Column name: Psychogeography - column ended October 2008

Remit/Info: see: Psychogeography definition (Wikipedia)

Section:

Role: Columnist

Pen-name:

Email:

Website: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/columnists/will-self

Commissioning editor:

Day published: Saturday Regularity: Weekly

Column format:

Average length:



Articles:
........................................................................................................................................................
 * London thinks only of itself. The rest of the country is just there to be bled dry - If you walk into the heart of England, you find a society as divided as that of the metropolis - 28th April 2012


 * end'' - In Ibiza - 4th October 2008 (final column)
 * cow!'' - Once again the British cattle industry was near-annihilated - 27th September 2008
 * music'' - If Brutalism is heavy metal, then what of postmodernism? Can it be equated with drum’n’bass? - 20th September 2008
 * condition'' - Which philosopher said that reading his fellow thinkers was like watching an ape play with a box of matches? - 13th September 2008
 * seer in Provence'' - The upland villages of Provence all look like mini collapsed towers of Babel - 6th September 2008
 * real cliff hanger'' - "See there, I reckon that'll be next to go, bit in 't middle went a few days ago." - 30th August 2008
 * slidin’away'' - Beyond Bridlington things got – as Alice would say – curiouser and curiouser - 23rd August 2008
 * 'I’ve been pummelled in hammams from Fez to Cappadocia, emerging feeling like pizza dough''' - 16th August 2008
 * The crude facts - 9th August 2008
 * Kitchen confidential - 2nd August 2008
 * Asylum years - 26th July 2008
 * Golden balls - 19th July 2008
 * Postcard from Cognac - 12th July 2008
 * Best foot forward - 5th July 2008
 * Down and out in Beverly Hills - 28th June 2008
 * Hebridean interlude - 21st June 2008
 * Throne overboard - 14th June 2008
 * American gothic - 7th June 2008
 * homebound - 7th June 2008
 * God's own country - 31st May 2008
 * Barking mad - 24th May 2008
 * Ordinary rendition - 17th May 2008
 * Olympic hurdles - 10th May 2008
 * Boomtown stats - 3rd May 2008
 * Dammit, Thanet! - 26th April 2008
 * Olfactory direct - 19th April 2008
 * Technicoloryawn - 12th April 2008
 * The love song of TS Eliot - 5th April 2008
 * Estuary English - 29th March 2008
 * Little Britten - 22nd March 2008
 * Wheel of fortune - 15th March 2008
 * It was a nippy February evening in Stamford - 8th March 2008
 * The axeman cometh - 1st March 2008
 * Money talks - 23rd February 2008
 * Rattus norvegicus - 16th February 2008
 * ...email from Bill Gates - 9th February 2008
 * Little Englander - 2nd February 2008
 * The people's Joyce - 26th January 2008
 * Going to the dogs - 19th January 2008
 * My favourite winter walks - 12th January 2008
 * New Year's revolution - 5th January 2008



News & updates:


References:


Links:

 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Self