LIFE AT A GLANCE

BORN
South London 1947

EDUCATED
Attended eight schools in England and in Australia - including Ashlyns, an experimental comprehensive in Hertfordshire - and read English at St Peter's College, Oxford University.

CAREER
After university, taught English at a grammar school and then trained in Movement and Drama at the Laban Centre, London. Worked briefly with a small opera company. Returned to teaching at a college, tutoring English and Drama. Now writes full time.

LIVES
Berkshire, UK. Married - 2 grown-up children

BOOKS
Remake (2024)
Newton's Niece
(1994)
Acts of Mutiny (1998)
If the Invader Comes (2001)
His Coldest Winter (2005)
The Icon Painter (2014)
Pharmakon (2015)

AWARDS
Derek Beaven won a Commonwealth Writer's Prize for Newton's Niece, which was also shortlisted for the Writers' Guild Best Fiction Book.
Acts of Mutiny shortlisted for both the Guardian Fiction Prize and the Encore Award.
If the Invader Comes longlisted for the Booker Prize.

 

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About The Book

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“Acts of Mutiny charts a romantic love affair on a doomed boat in turbulent oceans, with the bruised and brooding England of the 1950s in the background. It is also a devastatingly accurate examination of English class and manners, an account of national and domestic violence and their consequences. Most of all it is the study of Ralph’s own memory and what he increasingly suspects is a misremembered past—his childhood next to the Thames, his relationship with his father, his voodoo hold on the Armorica. Brimming with unforgettable descriptions of the sea, its animals, its weather and the ports along the way, Acts of Mutiny realised the enormous potential of Derek Beaven’s first novel and established him as one of England’s finest new writers.” (Taken from the flyleaf of the hardback and paperback editions)

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Reviews

‘Derek Beaven’s second novel confirms his status as a first rate novelist. An extraordinary book.’ David Nokes Sunday Times

‘The psychological accuracy with which Beaven describes character, and the truthfulness of his observation of childhood, is matched by the enjoyable precision with which he evokes time and place … a beautifully written book.’ Christina Koning The Times

‘Arresting … [Beaven] displays an impressive and wholly distinctive grip on both language and form.’ Eve Claxton Time Out (New York)

‘Ambitious, relentlessly ominous…’ Mark Rozzo Los Angeles Times

‘You’ll be lulled by Beaven’s descriptive talent and transported by the novel’s more conventional pleasures—sympathetic characters and an exciting, geopolitical plot.’ Mark Schone New York Times Book Review

‘In its method, slowly pulling the whole into focus, Beaven is reminiscent of William Faulkner … But the strength of his novel, its confident eloquence and menace, are distinctive and unforgettable.’ David Horspool Daily Telegraph

‘[A] strange, beautiful book … Part thriller, part love story, part elegy for lost innocence.’ David Robson Sunday Telegraph

Acts of Mutiny by Derek Beaven is available on Amazon

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