Name John Saul | Role Novelist | |
Books Fear Factor, Heron & Quin, The Most Serene Republic: Love Stories from Cities, As Rivers Flow | ||
John Saul born in Liverpool, England, on 1 October 1948 is a British novelist and short story writer.
John Saul is one of the UK's leading short story writers as well as a gifted novelist.
"John Saul is one of our best short story writers." — Nicholas Royle Time Out
Biography
John Saul was born in Liverpool, England. He has also lived in France, Canada, Germany and Ecuador, where he began writing fiction. His short stories (over 100) have appeared extensively in the UK and elsewhere, most notably in Australia and Canada. He is the author of Call It Tender and The Most Serene Republic: love stories from cities, both published by Salt Publishing. The Times wrote of Call It Tender on 9 June 2007 that "the short story is not only alive but being reinvigorated in excitingly diverse ways" and Time Out (18 July 2007) "It represents Saul at the peak of his powers." His third book of short stories, As Rivers Flow - "a beautifully conceived collection", said the Short Review (5 Oct 2009) - appeared in 2009, and his fourth, Even the butterfly must endure the storm, in 2013. Given the presence of these collections, it can be fairly said that his work has been making a rare contribution to the life of the short story in the UK. In 2013 he began an innovative project for words and music with the musician Jan Pulsford, which saw performances at the National Portrait Gallery and Writeidea Festival in London. His short fiction was shortlisted for the 2015 Sean O'Faolain prize and was included in Best British Short Stories 2016 (Salt). In the footsteps of AS Byatt and Hilary Mantel his work was selected as the contribution from England to Best European Fiction 2018 (Dalkey Archive), a prestigious annual anthology for which he was also shortlisted in 2012. The novel Seventeen is available online.