Occupation author Role Author Name Saviour Pirotta | Years active 1986 - present Nationality British | |
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Books Around the World in 80 Tales, The Orchard Book of Fi, Firebird, The Buccaneering Book of P, Icarus - the Boy Who Could Fly Similar People Jan Lewis, Alan Marks, Martin Waddell, Ann Jungman, Clement Clarke Moore | ||
The River Queen - Saviour Pirotta
Saviour Pirotta (born 1958, Naxxar, Malta) is a British writer of Maltese heritage. He has written children's books, plays and short stories for adults. He is mostly known for the bestselling The Orchard Book of First Greek Myths and the Ancient Greek Mysteries Series for Bloomsbury.
Contents
- The River Queen Saviour Pirotta
- The River King Saviour Pirotta
- Childhood
- Career in the UK
- Collaborations
- Festival appearances
- Awards and commendations
- Selected works
- References
The River King - Saviour Pirotta
Childhood
The second of five brothers, Pirotta grew up speaking both English and Maltese. His father, Anthony, is a retired joiner and his mother, née Cini, is a home maker. He attended Naxxar Primary School and later won a scholarship to St Aloysius' College, one of the most prestigious schools on the island. He developed a love of literature early on in life when he discovered the Narnia books by C.S. Lewis, Ian Serraillier's The Silver Sword and R.L. Stevenson's Treasure Island. The author's parents, both extremely devout Catholics, encouraged his writing but discouraged his general interest in the arts and censored most television programmes but Pirotta cites as visual influences on his writing the works of legendary film animator Ray Harryhausen and Alexander Korda. Rare visits to the cinema to watch Biblical epics like Ben Hur and The Ten Commandments were also to prove of lasting influence, which later led to an interest in the sword and sandal genre of movies and historical novels, especially the works of Rosemary Sutcliff.
Career in the UK
Having finished his secondary education at St. Aloysius College, Pirotta enrolled in a hotel management course, but left during the second year. He emigrated to the UK in 1981 where his first job was directing three short plays for Moonshine Community Arts Workshop in London, an offshoot of Brian Way's pioneering Theatre Centre. He also wrote a children's play based on a Maltese folk tale which toured various venues around London, including the Oval House and Jacksons Lane Community Centre. This brought him to the attention of the Commonwealth Institute, where he worked as a workshop leader and storyteller till 1989 alongside other artists from the Commonwealth including the Guyanese poet John Agard.
The children's play was subsequently published by Samuel French and Pirotta has since concentrated on writing. His first efforts were picture books but he soon moved into non-fiction, specialising in pirates and religious festivals. His Pirates and Treasure, published in the UK, the US, Russia and Sweden in 1995 is widely considered to be the first children's book about sea-robbers with a multi-cultural viewpoint. For a while he also wrote science books for the very young using the pen name Sam Godwin. A Seed in Need – a first look at life cycle of a flower – won him the 1998 English Association Award for best non-fiction picture book. After the success of his next two books, Turtle Bay and The Orchard Book of First Greek Myths, Pirotta decided to write solely under his own name.
Turtle Bay, published by Frances Lincoln in the UK and Farrar, Straus, Giroux in the United States, was selected by members of a book review panel appointed by the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) and assembled in co-operation with The Children's Book Council (CBC) as a Notable Science Trade Book of 1998. American Bookseller also chose it as one of their fall children's books 'pick of the list'.
In 2008 he performed for the first time at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. Pirotta's books are produced mainly for the English-speaking market but they have been successfully published by major publishers in various countries, including the United States, Italy, France, Spain, Holland, Portugal, Germany, Rumania, Belgium, Sweden, Brazil, Thailand, Greece, Estonia, Poland, Russia, Indonesia and Korea. In the US, excerpts from his works are often used by homeschoolers and in schools for multiple choice tests.
The author is now a British citizen and lives in Scarborough, North Yorkshire. He is very much committed to empowering children to write and still performs workshops and story-making sessions in schools around the UK. He is a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, the SCBWI and the Scattered Authors' Society.
In November 2010, his picture book Firebird was awarded an Aesop Accolade by the American Folklore Society. It shared the honour with Eric A. Kimmel's Joha Makes a Wish: A Middle Eastern Tale and Cloud Tea Monkeys by Mal Peet and Elspeth Graham. It also won a Best Book Award from the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio.
In November 2016, The Bookseller announced that Saviour Pirotta and his agents, Pollinger Ltd had signed a contract with Bloomsbury Publishing for a series of middle grade adventure stories set in Ancient Greece. The first title, Mark of the Cyclops, publishes in March 2017.
Collaborations
Pirotta has collaborated with some of the biggest names in children's illustration today, including Emma Chichester Clark, Catherine Hyde, Chris Riddell, Chris Mould, Jan Lewis, Alan Marks, Toni Goffe and Richard Johnson.
Festival appearances
Pirotta has appeared at the Edinburgh Children's Book Festival, the Bradford Literary Festival, the Northern Children's Book Festival, the Swansea Book Festival, the Scarborough Literary Festival and the Linton Book Festival.
Awards and commendations
Selected works
FICTION
ANTHOLOGIES
SERIES
PICTURE BOOKS