Christopher John Reid,

FRSL The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820 by George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, the ...

(born 13 May 1949) is a British poet, essayist,

cartoonist A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comics illustrators/artists in that they produce both the litera ...

, and writer. In January 2010 he won the 2009 Costa Book Award for ''A Scattering'', written as a tribute to his late wife, the actress Lucinda Gane. Beside winning the poetry category, Reid became the first poet to take the overall Costa Book of the Year since

Seamus Heaney Seamus Justin Heaney (13 April 1939 – 30 August 2013) was an Irish Irish poetry, poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. Among his best-known works is ''Death of a Naturalist'' (1966), his first m ...

in 1999. He had been nominated for Whitbread Awards in 1996 and in 1997 (Costa Awards under their previous name).

Biography

Reid was born in

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

. A contemporary of

Martin Amis Sir Martin Louis Amis (25 August 1949 – 19 May 2023) was an English novelist, essayist, memoirist, screenwriter and critic. He is best known for his novels ''Money'' (1984) and '' London Fields'' (1989). He received the James Tait Black Mem ...

, he was educated at

Tonbridge School Tonbridge School is a public school (English fee-charging boarding and day school for boys aged 13–18) in Tonbridge, Kent, England, founded in 1553 by Sir Andrew Judde (sometimes spelt Judd). It is a member of the Eton Group and has clo ...

and

Exeter College, Oxford Exeter College (in full: The Rector and Scholars of Exeter College in the University of Oxford) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England, and the fourth-oldest college of the university. The college was founde ...

. He is an exponent of Martian poetry, which employs unusual metaphors to render everyday experiences and objects unfamiliar. He has worked as poetry editor at

Faber and Faber Faber and Faber Limited, commonly known as Faber & Faber or simply Faber, is an independent publishing house in London. Published authors and poets include T. S. Eliot (an early Faber editor and director), W. H. Auden, C. S. Lewis, Margaret S ...

and Professor of

Creative Writing Creative writing is any writing that goes beyond the boundaries of normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature, typically identified by an emphasis on craft and technique, such as narrative structure, character ...

at the

University of Hull The University of Hull is a public research university in Kingston upon Hull, a city in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It was founded in 1927 as University College Hull. The main university campus is located in Hull and is home to the Hu ...

Books

*''Arcadia'' (1979) – 1980

Somerset Maugham Award The Somerset Maugham Award is a British literary prize given each year by the Society of Authors The Society of Authors (SoA) is a United Kingdom trade union for professional writers, illustrators and literary translators, founded in 1884 to ...

Hawthornden Prize The Hawthornden Prize is a British literary award given annually to a British, Irish or British-based author for a work of "imaginative literature" – including poetry, novels, history, biography and creative non-fiction – published in the pre ...

*''Pea Soup'' (1982) *''Katerina Brac'' (1985) *''In The Echoey Tunnel'' (1991) *''Universes'' (1994) *''Expanded Universes'' (1996) *''Two Dogs on a Pub Roof'' (1996) *''Mermaids Explained'' (2001) *''For and After'' (2003) *''Mr Mouth'' (2005) *'' A Scattering'' (2009) – Book of the Year, 2009 Costa Book Awards *''The Song of Lunch'' (2009) *''A Box of Tricks for Anna Zyx'' (2009) *''Selected Poems'' (2011) *''Nonsense'' (2012) *''Six Bad Poets'' (2013) *''Anniversary'' (2015) *''The Curiosities'' (2015) *''The Late Sun'' (2020) ; For children * ''All Sorts: poems'', illustrated by Sara Fanelli (London: Ondt & Gracehoper, 1999) *''Alphabicycle Order'', ill. Fanelli (Ondt & Gracehoper, 2001) *''Old Toffer's Book of Consequential Dogs'', illustrated by Elliott Elam — companion book to

T. S. Eliot Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist and playwright.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National Biography''. New York: Oxford University ...

's ''Old Possum's Practical Cats'' — (Faber and Faber, 2018) ; As editor *''The Poetry Book Society

Anthology In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs, or related fiction/non-fiction excerpts by different authors. There are also thematic and g ...

1989-1990'' (1989) *''Sounds Good: 101 Poems to be Heard'' (1990) *''The May Anthology of Oxford and Cambridge Poetry 1997'' (1997) *''Not to Speak of the Dog: 101 Short Stories in Verse'' (2000) *''Selected Letters of

Ted Hughes Edward James Hughes (17 August 1930 – 28 October 1998) was an English poet, translator, and children's writer. Critics frequently rank him as one of the best poets of his generation and one of the twentieth century's greatest writers. He wa ...

'' (2007) *''The Letters of Seamus Heaney'' (2023)

References

External links

* *
Alphabicycle Order horn concerto
at

WorldCat WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the O ...

– monologue with music (chorus with orchestra) by

Colin Matthews Colin Matthews, OBE (born 13 February 1946) is an English composer of contemporary classical music. Noted for his large-scale orchestral compositions, Matthews is also a prolific arranger of other composer's music, including works by Berlioz, ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Reid, Christopher 1949 births Living people Alumni of Exeter College, Oxford 21st-century British essayists British poets British editorial cartoonists People educated at Tonbridge School Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature Costa Book Award winners British male essayists British male poets

Biography

Books

See also

References

External links