Will Self

Will Self
Self in 2007
Born	William Woodard Self 26 September 1961 (1961-09-26) (age 48) London, England, U.K.
Occupation	Journalist, novelist
Nationality	English
Citizenship	British
Education	Bachelor of Philosophy
Alma mater	Exeter College, Oxford
Writing period	1991-present
Genres	Satire
Notable work(s)	The Quantity Theory of Insanity, Tough, Tough Toys for Tough, Tough Boys
Spouse(s)	Kate Chancellor (1989-1997) Deborah Orr (1997-present)
Influences J. G. Ballard William S. Burroughs Alasdair Gray Hunter S. Thompson Martin Amis
Official website

William Woodard "Will" Self (born 26 September 1961) is an English novelist, reviewer and columnist. He is known for his satirical, grotesque and fantastical novels and short stories.

Personal life

Self was raised, in his words, in "an effortlessly dull" North London suburb by "intellectually snobbish parents". Self's father, Peter Self, was both a Professor of Public Administration at the London School of Economics and Professor of Urban Research at the Australian National University, and his mother was a Jewish-American émigré. Despite the intellectual encouragement given by his parents, Self was an emotionally confused and self-destructive child, harming himself with cigarette ends and knives before getting into drugs in his teenage years.^[1] As mentioned on an episode of Have I Got News For You, he attended University College School, an independent school for boys in Hampstead in North London, with Hugh Dennis where they played rugby together. He later attended Christ's College Finchley.

Self was a voracious reader from a young age. At ten an interest in science fiction grew, with notable works such as Frank Herbert's Dune, J. G. Ballard and Philip K. Dick reflecting the precociousness of Self's reading. Into his teenage years, Self claimed to have been "overawed by the canon", stifling his ability to express himself. Nevertheless, Self's dabbling with illegal drugs grew analogous to his prolific reading.

Self won a place at Exeter College, Oxford where he read philosophy.

His reasons for not studying English were covered by Self in an interview with the Guardian.

"I [had] a pretty thorough grounding in the canon, but I certainly didn't want to be involved with criticism. Even then it seemed inimical to what it was to be a writer, which is what I really wanted to be."^[2]

Self was addicted to heroin, as well as many other drugs, in the past, but has abstained, except for caffeine and nicotine since 1998.^[3]

He currently lives in Stockwell, South London,^[4] and has written about hikes he has taken around the city, of distances up to 100 miles. He has described himself as a modern flâneur.^[5]

Family

Self has been twice married. He was married to Katherine (Kate) Sylvia Chancellor, from 1989 to 1997. Kate is a daughter of John Chancellor^[6] and his first wife Hon. (Mary) Alice Joliffe (herself daughter of William Jolliffe, 4th Baron Hylton and a great-granddaughter of H.H. Asquith, British Prime Minister in the early 20th century). Kate is also the older sister of actress Anna Chancellor, and the niece of journalist Alexander Chancellor. Together they had two children, a son Alexis and a daughter Madeleine.

In 1997, Self married Deborah Jane Orr,^[7] a journalist, with whom he has two sons called Ivan and Luther.

His brother is the author Jonathan Self.

Career

Will Self has made many appearances on British television, notably as a contestant on Have I Got News for You (as of 2007 he has made nine guest appearances, a record for people who haven't been host of the show), as a regular on Shooting Stars and Grumpy Old Men, a guest appearance on Satisfied Fool and a full episode of Room 101. He has also been a panellist on the BBC Radio 4 comedy series "The Unbelievable Truth". He gained a degree of infamy in 1997 when he was sent by the British broadsheet The Observer to cover the electoral campaign of John Major, and was subsequently fired from the newspaper after taking heroin on the Prime Minister's jet.^[2] In December 2008 and November 2009, Self appeared on BBC One's Question Time.

His Psychogeography column appeared in the magazine section of the Saturday edition of The Independent. He has also written for the New Statesman and Prospect magazine.

Literary style

Like Salman Rushdie, Will Self writes much of his fiction with references and allusions to modern culture (both high and low)^{[citation needed]}. The influences on his fiction mentioned most frequently include J.G. Ballard, William Burroughs and Hunter S. Thompson often not for purely literary reasons. Alongside these he has cited^{[citation needed]} such diverse writers as Jonathan Swift, Alasdair Gray, Franz Kafka, Lewis Carroll, Joseph Heller and Louis-Ferdinand Celine as formative influences on his writing style. Martin Amis is often mentioned alongside Self; Self went to interview him but they ended up having more of a discussion about each other's work and lives — it is known that they have tremendous respect for each other.^[4]

Zack Busner is a recurring character in the fiction of Will Self, appearing in the short story collections The Quantity Theory of Insanity, Grey Area, Dr. Mukti and Other Tales of Woe, as well as in the novels Great Apes and The Book of Dave. Busner is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst practising in London, and is prone to self-promotion at the expense of his patients. He is often the antagonist of the stories he appears in, although not always with villainous intent.

Works

Fiction

• Cock and Bull (1992) — the stories of a man and a woman who develop sexual organs of the opposite sex.
• My Idea of Fun (1993) — a lonely boy grows up just outside Brighton in a caravan park with his over-sexual mother and Mr Broadhurst who takes the boy on a disturbing and often violent journey.
• Great Apes (1997) — a man wakes up in a world where chimpanzees evolved to be the species with self-awareness, while humans are the equivalent of chimps in our world.
• How the Dead Live (2000) — an old lady dies, only to be moved to a London suburb where the dead have taken residence.
• Dorian, an Imitation (2002) — a modern take on Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray.
• The Book of Dave (2006) — Set between 1987 and 2003, against a backdrop of Fathers for Justice protests, it is the story of a London cab driver who suffers a mental breakdown due to failed relationships, estrangement from his son and an obsession with The Knowledge. He writes a book of rantings which he buries, that is discovered 500 years later and used as the sacred text for a religion that has taken hold in the flooded remnants of London.
• The Butt (2008) — a man flicks a cigarette butt from the balcony of his apartment while on vacation in a foreign land and soon finds himself enmeshed in the bureaucratic nightmare of native law.

Short fiction

• The Quantity Theory of Insanity (short stories) 1991
• Grey Area (short stories) 1994
• "License to Hug", published in Esquire magazine, November 1995
• The Sweet Smell of Psychosis (illustrated novella) 1996
• Design Faults in the Volvo 760 Turbo (short stories) 1998
• Tough, Tough Toys for Tough, Tough Boys (short stories) 1998
• Dr. Mukti and Other Tales of Woe (short stories) 2004
• Liver: A Fictional Organ with a Surface Anatomy of Four Lobes (short stories) 2008
• The Undivided Self: Selected Stories (short stories) scheduled 2009

Non-fiction

Self has also compiled several books of work from his newspaper and magazine columns which mix interviews with counter-culture figures, restaurant reviews and literary criticism.

• Junk Mail (1996)
• Perfidious Man (2000) photography by David M. Gamble
• Sore Sites (2000)
• Feeding Frenzy (2001)
• Psychogeography (2007)
• Psycho Too (2009)

Introductions and forewords

• Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban (2002)
• Liner Notes to Genius: The Best of Warren Zevon (2002)
• Junky by William S. Burroughs (2002)
• We by Yevgeny Zamyatin (2007)

Narration

• Narration on "5ml. Barrel" from the album Clear (1995) by Bomb the Bass

• Narration on "The Happy Detective" from the compilation album series Late Night Tales, by Groove Armada and Snow Patrol

Awards

• 1991: Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize for "The Quantity Theory of Insanity"
• 1998: Aga Khan Prize for Fiction from The Paris Review for Tough Tough Toys for Tough Tough Boys
• 2008: Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction for "The Butt"

Self has been shortlisted three times for the Bad Sex in Fiction Award: in 2002 for Dorian, in 2004 for "Dr Mukti" in Dr Mukti and other tales of woe and in 2006 for The Book of Dave.

References

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Will Self

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Will Self

• Official Will Self site
• Will Self at the Internet Movie Database
• Will Self at Contemporary Writers
• Guardian Books author page: Will Self
• Will Self article in Issue 08 of TATE ETC. magazine
• Interview with 3:AM/Big Issue in the North
• The Sweet Smell of Excess: Will Self, Bataille and Transgression (An essay examining Self's work and parallels with Georges Bataille.)
• A short interview: BBC
• Interview: Spike Magazine
• Audio Interview (available in Real Audio or mp3): Salon.com
• Self interviewed by the International Necronautical Society (see also INS)
• Transcript of Self's encounter with Richard Littlejohn interviewed on Radio Five Live by Nicky Campbell
• Will Self on why he writes
• "The Principle"