Biography of David Mitchell

David Mitchell was born in Southport, England on January 12, 1969. He was raised in Malvern, Worcestershire and attended the University of Kent. There he earned a degree in English and American Literature and later an M.A. in Comparative Literature.

Mitchell’s complex first novel Ghostwritten was published in 1999 and went on to win the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. His follow up novels number9dream (2001) and Cloud Atlas (2004) were equally complex and both were short listed for the Man Booker Prize. Mitchell’s 2006 novel, Black Swan Green, is a semiautobiographical account of the author’s struggles with stammering. The novel was selected by Time Magazine as one of the top 10 Books of the Year. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is Mitchell latest work of fiction, published in 2010 to critical success.

In 2013, Mitchell published an English translation of Naoki Higashida’s memoir The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism. He collaborated with KA Yoshida, his wife, on the translation in an effort to raise awareness for autism. The couple also hoped to help others understand how autistic children, like their own son, think and retain memory.

Among his other literary successes, Mitchell has published short stories with The New York Times and The Guardian. He also released two operas Wake in 2010 and Sunken Garden in 2013.

Mitchell’s many awards include the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the British Book Awards (Literary Fiction). He was short listed for the Man Book Prize, twice, and the Guardian First Book Award, the Nebula Award, the Arthur C. Clark Award and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.

Mitchell currently lives with his wife and children in Clonakilty, County Cork, Ireland.