William Boyd

(born 1952 - ) - Fife background

William Boyd
© Jerry Bauer

William Boyd was born in Accra, Ghana, in 1952, the son of expatriate Scots from Fife. He regards himself as a Scottish writer, saying recently in the Scottish Review of Books, 'If someone asks me what nationality I am, I unhesitatingly say I’m Scottish... I'm also aware sometimes I'm included in anthologies of Scottish literature, and sometimes I'm excluded... In Scotland, the net is not being thrown wide enough.' (Here, at BooksfromScotland.com, we're very happy to include William Boyd.)

His writing brought him success almost immediately with his first novel, A Good Man in Africa, winning the Whitbread First Novel Award and the Somerset Maugham Award in 1981. The following year, his next novel, An Ice-Cream War, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Since then, he has been a prolific writer and screenwriter with some of his novels and short stories adapting to radio and the small screen.

Boyd's most recent work, Bamboo, is more autobiographical in tone, bringing together a selection of non-fiction writings from the past three decades.

He lives in London.

Key Titles

  • Cover scan of Any Human Heart
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    Any Human Heart - Paperback
    This is the story of Logan Mountstuart, told through his journals. His travels take the reader from Uruguay to Oxford, Paris, the Bahamas, New York and Africa. This is the story of a life lived to the full - and a journey deep into a very human heart.
  • Cover scan of Armadillo
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    Armadillo - Paperback
    From the author of A Good Man in Africa and The Blue Afternoon, Armadillo is a contemporary novel set entirely in London. Lorimer Black, young and good-looking, finds his life turned upside down after discovering a dead body.
  • Cover scan of Bamboo
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    Bamboo - Paperback
    This collection of non-fiction gathers together Boyd's writing on literature, art, the movie business, television, people he has met, places he has visited and autobiographical reflections on his African childhood, his years at boarding school and the profession of novelist.
  • Cover scan of Brazzaville Beach
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    Brazzaville Beach - Paperback
    On Brazzaville Beach, on the edge of Africa, Hope Clearwater examines the complex circumstances that brought her there. Sifting the details for evidence of her own innocence or guilt, she tells her engrossing story
  • Cover scan of Fascination
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    Fascination - Paperback
    In William Boyd's array of styles and narratives, readers are moved from 1930s Germany to Los Angeles in the Second World War, from contemporary Oxford to 19th century Russia.
  • Cover scan of A Good Man In Africa
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    A Good Man In Africa - Paperback
    Morgan Leafy isn't overburdened with worldly success. He is a representative of Her Britannic Majesty in tropical Kinjanja. Falling back on his reserves of misanthropy and guile, he has to fight off the sea of humiliation & betrayal that threatens him
  • Cover scan of An Ice-Cream War
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    An Ice-Cream War - Paperback
    Primarily a gripping story of the men and women swept up by the passions of love and battle, William Boyd's magnificently entertaining novel also elicits the cruel futility and tragedy of it all.
  • Cover scan of The New Confessions
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    The New Confessions - Paperback
    The New Confessions takes the form of an autobiography, that of John James Todd, a Scotsman born in 1899 and one of the great self-appointed (and failed) geniuses of the 20th century.
  • Cover scan of Restless
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    Restless - Paperback
    What happens to your life when everything you thought you knew about your mother turns out to be an elaborate lie? Ruth Gilmartin discovers the strange and haunting truth about her mother, Sally, during the long hot summer of 1976.

Bibliography