British author, commentator and broadcaster Howard Jacobson was born in Manchester, England in 1942 and educated at Cambridge University. After teaching for a number of years at the University of Sydney, and back in England at Cambridge and Wolverhampton Polytechnic, Howard’s first novel Coming from Behind was published in 1983.
After a series of intellectually ambitious and very funny novels including Peeping Tom (1984), a comedy of sexual jealousy satirising literary biography; The Very Model of a Man (1992), a re-working of the Cain and Abel myth; and No More Mister Nice Guy (1998), the story of television critic Frank Ritz's mid-life crisis; in 1999 Howard won the Everyman Wodehouse Award for comic writing for his book The Mighty Walzer. In 2000 he won the Jewish Quarterly Literary Prize for Fiction for the same book. His novels Who’s Sorry Now (2002) and Kalooki Nights (2006) were both long-listed for the Man Booker Prize.
In addition to his fiction, Howard has written a number of non-fiction books including In the Land of Oz (1987) about travels in Australia; Roots Schmoots: Journeys Among Jews (1993), a memoir; and Seriously Funny: From the Ridiculous to the Sublime (1997), an investigation of the origins of comedy which inspired a related television series. As a broadcaster he has hosted several other television programs, including 'Howard Jacobson Takes on the Turner', broadcast by Channel 4 in 2000, and a 'South Bank Show' special entitled 'Why the Novel Matters' in 2002.
In 2009 Howard hosted the first segment of Channel 4’s documentary Christianity: A History ( watch an interview with Howard online). He writes a weekly opinion column for The Independent; his most recent novel is The Act of Love (2008).
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