Martin Amis joins The University of Manchester

15 Feb 2007

Leading novelist appointed as Professor of Creative Writing

Martin Amis, one of the biggest names in British literature, has been appointed as a Professor of Creative Writing at The University of Manchester in his first teaching post.

He will run postgraduate seminars at the University's Centre for New Writing, due to launch in September this year, and will also participate in four public events each year, including a two week summer school for MA students.

Amis has written 11 novels, including Money (1984), London Fields (1989), Time's Arrow (1991), The Information (1995) and The House of Meetings (2006). His new novel, The Pregnant Widow, will be published next year.

He will be based at the School of Arts, Histories and Cultures, also home to the leading literary theorist and critic, Professor Terry Eagleton, and will be joined by novelist Patricia Duncker and Irish poet Vona Groarke, fellow new appointees at the Centre for New Writing.

In taking up this new role, Amis is following in the footsteps of his father, the novelist Kingsley Amis, who also taught - at Swansea, Princeton and Cambridge - for fifteen years.

"So I think I may have something to offer as a teacher, and it's always been a quiet ambition of mine to give it my best try.

"I've written a lot of fiction, and I've also written a lot about fiction, so I'll be bringing a dual perspective to it.

"I look forward to a new milieu with new colleagues, and it will give me a chance to find out more about that shadowy and inscrutable demographic group - the young."

Welcoming Martin Amis to this major role, Professor Alan Gilbert, President and Vice Chancellor at The University of Manchester, said:

"It will be a wonderful opportunity for our creative writing students to learn their craft from so distinguished a novelist.

"We already have a major presence in creative writing, but this appointment confirms The University of Manchester as one of the leading places in the world to study creative writing."