Adam Thorpe

Adam Thorpe is a British poet, novelist, and acclaimed translator. Thorpe was born in Paris but grew up between Cameroon, India, and England, as his father worked for Pan-Am and was constantly moving. He graduated from Oxford Magdalen College in 1979, where he spent a few years founding and touring with a small theatre company before settling down in London to teach literature and drama. He married Joanna Wistreich—also an English teacher—in 1985. Thorpe has been a prolific and celebrated writer since 1988, publishing eleven novels, seven books of poetry, and two collections of short stories. His first and most celebrated novel, Ulverton, received massive acclaim upon its release and received the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize in 1992. In addition to his novels, short fiction, and poetry, Thorpe has also translated two of the great 19th-century French novels—Madame Bovary and Thérèse Raquin—for Vintage Classics. He lives in France with his wife and three children.