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.
Purchase
Coming Soon -
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2019
I’ve been working intensively for the last three and a half years on my new novel Remake. It’s a powerful love story set in the world of theatre and film:
“Jackie’s life shows all the signs of crisis: a broken heart, a blighted future. The answer is obvious. Say no to everything. Force fate to come up with a happier script—a fairy tale, even. But fairy tales are full of sinister tricks and evil spirits, and even love might be a delusion. What can be trusted, when everyday objects aren’t as solid as they seem, and life starts imitating film? Remake mixes physical comedy with pointed tragedy, and in performance plays with the very nature of fiction.”
The manuscript is currently with my agent, Louise Greenberg.
July 2015
Both The Icon Painter (2014) and Pharmakon (2015) are now available in paperback.
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| The Icon Painter (2014) Paperback Click this link |
Pharmakon (2015) Paperback Click this link |
February 2015
Pharmakon, my new collection of poetry, is now available as an e-book. Both this and my latest novel, The Icon Painter, will soon appear as paperbacks, too.
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Pharmakon by Derek Beaven |
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October 2014
Acts of Mutiny, my Guardian Fiction Prize shortlisted novel of 1998, will be re-issued by HarperCollins Publishers as an e-book on 13th November 2014.
The cover illustration is not currently showing on Amazon while the upload is in final preparation at the publishers. Pre-orders are still available, though, at £4.99.
In order to prepare the text for e-publication, we made one or two extremely minor alterations to avoid the need for repeat permissions for quoting from a couple of popular songs still in copyright.Difficulties over obtaining these permissions had held up the e-book version for a few months. All now resolved. Many thanks to HarperCollins.
The originally published paperback is also available, of course, at the usual print-on-demand rates. (Print ondemand happens to older books, where Amazon list the item as ‘Only 1 left in stock—order soon.’)
Pharmakon, my new collection of poetry, is almost ready to go. It will be published very shortly on Kindle.
June 2014
The Icon Painter was launched on June 3rd by invitation at St Peter’s College, Oxford University
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| The Icon Painter Launch | The Icon Painter Launch |
My latest novel The Icon Painter, eight years in the making, was published on Kindle on Sunday 11th May 2014.
If The Invader Comes and His Coldest Winter are now also available on Kindle as well as in their print formats. Newton’s Niece and Acts of Mutiny are coming very soon as e-books. For this, many thanks to my publishers HarperCollins/Fourth Estate and to my editor, Nicholas Pearson.
My new collection of poetry Pharmakon will be published very shortly as an e-book on Kindle. One of the poems USAF Ipswich will appear in The Arts of Peace anthology, to be published this August by Two Rivers Press. USAF Ipswich will also appear in July in Notre Dame Review (USA)