Chris Paling

Biography

Born in 1956 in Derby, Chris Paling studied social sciences at the University of Sussex. He started working as a studio manager for BBC radio in 1981. In the early 90s he had a Thirty Minute Theatre play called Way Station produced on BBC Radio 4. He wrote more radio plays and later began writing novels.

After the Raid (1995), a wartime study of a shattered mind, was closely followed by Deserters (1996) and Morning All Day (1997). Paling feared The Silent Sentry (1999), about a radio producer who cracks up, might be "the longest resignation letter in history", but he remains a Radio 4 producer to this day. Newton's Swing (2000) was a subtle Stateside thriller; The Repentant Morning (2003) is set in London and Spain in 1936; A Town by the Sea (2005) is a departure from his previous style, leading the reader through a strange landscape of unfamiliar people and places. "Minding" (2007), recently nominated for the Mind book of the year, was described as 'a delicately and intimately drawn portrait'.

Paling wrote a series of plays entitled 'Words and Music', broadcast by BBC Radio 4 in the summer of 2013. In 2017 his new book "Reading Allowed: True Stories and Curious Incidents from a Provincial Library" was published.

Chris Paling is married with two children, Sarah and Thomas, and lives in Brighton and works at the communal library.