PHILIP PULLMAN
Philip Pullman was born on October 19th, 1946 in Norwich, England. His father, Alfred Pullman, an RAF pilot was killed in a plane crash in Kenya when Pullman was only seven.
His mother remarried and when they moved to Australia he discovered his love of comic books including Superman and Batman.
From 1957 Pullman was educated in Harlech, North Wales but spent time in Norwich with his grandfather, a clergyman. Here he discovered Milton's "Paradise Lost" which would become such a strong influence for own work "His Dark Materials".
Philip Pullman graduated from Oxford and taught middle school children at Bishop Kirk Middle school in North Oxford. Along with his teaching, he began working on his real love - writing.
He's been writing full-time now since 1996 and won several prestigious awards for his children's novels. His most popular books - the His Dark Materials Trilogy consisting of 'Northern Lights', 'The Subtle Knife' and 'The Amber Spyglass' have between them won the Carnegie Medal, The Whitbread Prize and The Whitbread Book Of The Year Prize.
Philip Pullan's upcoming three-part book series 'The Book of Dust' will be available on his birthday later this month. The first volume is set 10 years before The Northern Lights and again centres on Lyra Belacqua.
Interesting facts about 'His Dark Materials' Trilogy:
1. Pullman was inspired to create the daemons after seeing Leonardo da Vinci's painting Lady With an Ermine.
2. The stage production of his entire Dark Materials had two parts and was 6 hours long.
3. He based the series on the 17th-century poem Paradise Lost. He decided to turn the story on its head when he created his trilogy.
4 comments:
I am not a fan of the genre but I did enjoy the post and information about the author. Someone I would never have got to know!
Goodness, a new book in that universe! How wonderful! Yes, Phillip Pullman really upset some religious folk with that trilogy. It's why they didn't finish filming the trilogy, a great shame as The Golden Compass was a beautiful film, and well cast. But it did poorly in the U.S., though well elsewhere. I loved those books, they were so very visual. And I could feel the coldness in the north. I'll have to look out for the new book.
Translation and info: Who'd Have Thought?
Thank you, Mystica. :)
Hi Sue, I'm looking forward to the new series too. Thank you for the comments.
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