Benjamin Wood (writer)
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Benjamin Wood | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Benjamin Wood in 2014 | |
| Born | 1981 (age 44–45) |
| Occupation | Novelist |
| Alma mater | University of British Columbia |
| Period | 2012–present |
| Genre | Literary fiction |
| Notable works | Seascraper (2025) |
| Notable awards | Nero Book Award for fiction |
Benjamin Wood (born 1981) is a British author and academic who has written five novels.[1]
Wood's first novel, The Bellwether Revivals, was shortlisted for the 2012 Costa Book Award for First Novel[2] and the 2012 Commonwealth Book Prize.[3] It won France's Prix du roman Fnac in 2014.[4]
His second novel, The Ecliptic, was inspired by the three months he spent in Istanbul for an artist-in-residence cultural exchange programme organised by the British Council.[5] It was shortlisted for the 2016 Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award[6] and the RSL Encore Award.[7] His third novel, A Station on the Path to Somewhere Better, was shortlisted for the 2019 European Union Prize for Literature[8] and the CWA Gold Dagger.[9]
In 2022 Wood published his fourth novel, The Young Accomplice. It was chosen as a book of the year by The Irish Times,[10] The New Statesman,[11] The Spectator,[7] The Sunday Times,[7] The Times[12] and The Week.[13] A serialised version was broadcast on BBC Radio 4.[14]
Wood's fifth novel, Seascraper, won the Nero Book Award for fiction.[15] It was also shortlisted for the 2026 Walter Scott Prize[16] and longlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize.[17]
Life
Wood was born in 1981,[18] to parents who separated before he reached adulthood,[19] and grew up in Southport.[20] His childhood was spent in a nursing home run by his parents.[21]
As a young man, Wood realised he had a gift for fiction when his sixth-form teacher was convinced that the dramatic monologue he had written for an assignment had been plagiarised from an existing work.[22] At the age of 17 he abandoned his A-levels in the hope of pursuing a career as a singer-songwriter, but failed to get a record deal.[23] He went on to gain a BTEC in art and design, followed by a degree in screenwriting from the University of Central Lancashire.[24] A Commonwealth Scholarship, obtained in 2004[25] with the help of a reference from the writer Michael Marshall Smith,[24] enabled him to obtain a MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia.[26] While living in Vancouver Wood was the fiction editor of Prism International.[25]
After returning from Canada Wood worked for several years as a lecturer at Birkbeck, University of London,[21] co-founding and directing their undergraduate creative writing programme.[7] In 2016 he joined King's College London, where he is a senior lecturer in creative writing.[7] He lives in Surrey with his wife and sons.[1]