Alan Hollinghurst

Early life and education

Hollinghurst was born in Stroud, Gloucestershire, England, only child of bank manager James Hollinghurst, who served in the RAF in the Second World War, He attended Dorset's Canford School.

He studied English at Magdalen College, Oxford, receiving a BA in 1975 and MLitt in 1979. His thesis was on works by three gay writers: Ronald Firbank, E. M. Forster and L. P. Hartley. He house-shared at Oxford with future poet laureate Andrew Motion, and was awarded poetry's Newdigate Prize, a year before Motion. In the late 1970s, Hollinghurst lectured at Magdalen, then at Somerville and Corpus Christi. In 1981, he lectured at UCL, and in 1982 joined The Times Literary Supplement, serving as deputy editor from 1985 to 1990.

Hollinghurst discussed his early life and literary influences at length in a rare interview at home in London, published in The James White Review in 1997–98.

Writing

Hollinghurst won the 2004 Booker Prize for The Line of Beauty. His next novel, The Stranger's Child, made the 2011 Booker Prize longlist.

The Guardian has called Hollinghurst "one of the great writers of our time". The Sunday Times has stated "at the sentence level, Hollinghurst remains an English stylist without obvious living equal."

Personal life

Hollinghurst is gay and lives in London. In 2018, he lived with the non-binary writer Paul Mendez, though the two are now separated. Hollinghurst previously said: "I'm not at all easy to live with. I wish I could integrate writing into ordinary social life, but I don't seem to be able to. I could when I started [writing]. I suppose I had more energy then. Now I have to isolate myself for long periods."

Awards and honours

• 1974: Newdigate Prize
• 1989: Somerset Maugham Award, for The Swimming-Pool Library
• 1989: Stonewall Book Award, for The Swimming-Pool Library
• 1994: James Tait Black Memorial Prize, for The Folding Star
• 1995: Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature
• 2004: Booker Prize, for The Line of Beauty
• 2011: Booker Prize, longlist for The Stranger's Child
• 2011: Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement from Publishing Triangle
• 2025: David Cohen Prize

List of works

Poetry

• Isherwood is at Santa Monica (Sycamore Broadsheet 22: two poems, hand-printed on a single folded sheet), Oxford: Sycamore Press 1975
• Poetry Introduction 4 (ten poems: "Over the Wall", "Nightfall", "Survey", "Christmas Day at Home", "The Drowned Field", "Alonso", "Isherwood is at Santa Monica", "Ben Dancing at Wayland's Smithy", "Convalescence in Lower Largo", "The Well"), Faber and Faber, 1978
• Confidential Chats with Boys, Oxford: Sycamore Press, 1982 (based on the book Confidential Chats with Boys by William Lee Howard, MD, 1911, Sydney, Australia)
• "Mud" (London Review of Books, Vol. 4, No. 19, 21 October 1982)

Short stories

• A Thieving Boy (Firebird 2: Writing Today, Penguin, 1983)
• Sharps and Flats (Granta 43, 1993), was incorporated into Hollinghurst's second novel, The Folding Star
• Highlights (Granta 100, 2007)

Novels

• The Swimming-Pool Library, 1988,
• The Folding Star, 1994,
• The Spell, 1998,
• The Line of Beauty, 2004,
• The Stranger's Child, 2011,
• The Sparsholt Affair, 2017,
• Our Evenings, 2024,

Translations

• Bajazet by Jean Racine, Chatto & Windus, 1991,
• Bérénice and Bajazet by Jean Racine, Faber and Faber, 2012,

As editor

• New Writing 4 (with A. S. Byatt), 1995,
• A. E. Housman: poems selected by Alan Hollinghurst, Faber and Faber, 2001,

Foreword

• Three Novels by Ronald Firbank, 2000

References

References

1. (6 May 2018). "How Alan Hollinghurst Helped Make 'Gay Literature' Mainstream". The Daily Beast.
2. Harvey, Giles. (14 March 2018). "The Evolution of One of Fiction's Gay Liberators". The New York Times.
3. (20 October 2004). "A beautiful victory at the Booker for tale of gay love in Thatcherite". The Independent.
4. Andrew Anthony, [https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2011/jun/12/observer-profile-alan-hollinghurst "Alan Hollinghurst: The slow-motion novelist delivers"], ''The Guardian'', 11 June 2011.
5. Rose, Peter. (14 May 2005). "The Hollinghurst line". [[The Age]].
6. (13 November 2013). "About.com". Contemporarylit.about.com.
7. (19 October 2004). "Hollinghurst's rise to Booker glory". BBC News.
8. Johnson, Allan. (2014). "Alan Hollinghurst and the Vitality of Influence". Palgrave Macmillan.
9. Galligan, David. [http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/interviews/9258679/beneath-surface-swimming-pool-library "Beneath the Surface of The Swimming-Pool Library: An Interview with Alan Hollinghurst"], ''The James White Review'' 14.3 (Fall 1997): 1–7; and [http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/interviews/9246760/hampstead-heath-interview-alan-hollinghurst "On Hampstead Heath: An Interview with Alan Hollinghurst"], ''The James White Review'' 15.1 (Winter 1998): 10–13.
10. "Man Booker Prize 2011 longlist announced". The Booker Prize Foundation.
11. (25 September 2024). "Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst review – his finest novel yet". The Guardian.
12. (4 October 2024). "Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst review — the best living English novelist?". [[The Times]].
13. Hahn, Lorraine. (11 May 2005). "Alan Hollinghurst TalkAsia Interview Transcript". CNN.
14. Moss, Stephen. (21 October 2004). "'I Don't Make Moral Judgments': Interview with Alan Hollinghurst, winner of the 2004 Booker prize". The Guardian.
15. (21 October 2004). "Alan Hollinghurst wins prestigious Booker Prize".
16. Tillyard, Stella. (November 2005). "Interview: Alan Hollinghurst".
17. Law, Katie. (28 April 2020). "From Jehovah's Witness to gay sex worker to novelist: the extraordinary life story of Paul Mendez". Evening Standard.
18. Thomas-Corr, Johanna. (27 September 2024). "Alan Hollinghurst: Sex Scenes? I prefer to cultivate mystery". [[The Times]].
19. Gekoski, Rick. (7 July 2011). "Writing is bad for you". The Guardian.
20. "Collection: Guard-book containing copies of Newdigate Prize poems {{!}} Bodleian Archives & Manuscripts".
21. "Somerset Maugham Award. Winners. Shortlists. News.".
22. "Stonewall Book Awards List {{!}} Rainbow Roundtable".
23. (2024-07-23). "Fiction winners".
24. (2023-09-01). "Hollinghurst, Alan".
25. "The Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement".
26. Loffhagen, Emma. (2025-11-04). "Alan Hollinghurst wins David Cohen lifetime award for 'pioneering' novels". [[The Guardian]].
27. "Isherwood is at Santa Monica".
28. Mendelssohn, Michèle. (2016). "Poetry, Parody, Porn and Prose". Alan Hollinghurst: Writing Under the Influence.
29. Hollinghurst, Alan. (21 October 1982). "Mud". [[London Review of Books]].
30. Dodson, Ed. (August 2023). "Sexuality, race and empire in Alan Hollinghurst's 'A Thieving Boy' (1983)".
31. Hollinghurst, Alan. (1 July 1993). "Sharps and flats". [[Granta]].
32. Hollinghurst, Alan. (7 January 2008). "Highlights". [[Granta]].