Career
Those stories led directly to his first novel, Skellig (1999), set in Newcastle. It won the 1999 Whitbread Award, Children's Book and the Carnegie Medal. It has been published in over thirty languages. And it has become a radio play scripted by Almond; a stage play scripted by Almond, first production at the Young Vic, directed by Trevor Nunn; an opera with libretto by Almond, composed by Tod Machover, first directed by Braham Murray at The Sage in Gateshead; and a film directed by Annabel Jankel, with Tim Roth as Skellig.
In the next seven years, four more novels by Almond made the Carnegie Medal shortlist of five to eight books. Since Skellig his novels, stories, and plays have also brought international success and widespread critical acclaim. They are Kit's Wilderness (2000), Heaven Eyes (2000), Secret Heart (2001), The Fire Eaters (2003), Clay (2005), Jackdaw Summer ( ), and My Name is Mina (2010), a prequel to Skellig. He collaborates with leading artists and illustrators, including Polly Dunbar (My Dad's a Birdman and The Boy Who Climbed Into the Moon); Stephen Lambert (Kate, the Cat and the Moon; and Dave McKean (The Savage, Slog's Dad and the forthcoming Mouse Bird Snake Wolf). His plays include Wild Girl, Wild Boy, My Dad's a Birdman, Noah & the Fludd and the stage adaptations of Skellig and Heaven Eyes.
Almond's novel The True Tale of the Monster Billy Dean (2011) was published in two editions: Adult (Penguin Viking); and Young Adult (Puffin). 2012 publications include The Boy Who swam With Piranhas (illustrated by Oliver Jeffers). 2013: "Mouse Bird Snake Wolf" (illustrated by Dave McKean).
His works are highly philosophical and thus appeal to children and adults alike. Recurring themes throughout include the complex relationships between apparent opposites (such as life and death, reality and fiction, past and future); forms of education; growing up and adapting to change; the nature of the "self". He has been greatly influenced by the works of the English Romantic poet William Blake.
In November 2008 he was a guest on Private Passions, the biographical music discussion programme on BBC Radio 3. In November 2012 an edition of BBC Radio 4's Bookclub is dedicated to Skellig. He has written and recorded an essay on the poet, Caedmon, to be broadcast as part of BBC Radio 3's Anglo Saxon Portraits series. His story, Francesca and the Tiger, is published in the new Waterstone's anthology, Red.
His short story "The Knife Sharpener" appeared in The Sunday Times on 25 January 2010 and The Savage was given away free as part of the Liverpool Reads event.
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—Barbara Dale (b. 1940)