Michelle Paver

38
Michelle Paver bigraphy, stories - English children's fiction writer

Michelle Paver : biography

07 September 1960 –

Michelle Paver (born 1960) is a British novelist and children’s writer, probably best known for the fantasy series Chronicles of Ancient Darkness, set in pre-agricultural Stone Age Europe. For the concluding book Ghost Hunter (2009) she won the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize, a once-in-a-lifetime book award judged by a panel of British children’s writers.

Chronicles of Ancient Darkness

The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness tell the story of Torak, an adolescent boy who is clanless, and his friends Renn and Wolf. The first book is called "Wolf Brother". The main story arc revolves around Torak and his quest to defeat the Soul Eaters, a group of evil clan mages who seek out to destroy all life in the forest in which they live. The books are set in the prehistoric Europe during the New Stone Age.

The first of the series, Wolf Brother was published in 2004 and as a whole the books have sold over 1 million copies in the UK. Paver was paid a reported £2.8 million advance for the first book. The sixth and last in the series, Ghost Hunter won the 2010 Guardian Prize.

Biography

Michelle Paver was born in Nyasaland (now Malawi) in central Africa. Her mother was Belgian (Flemish) and her South African father ran a newspaper, the Nyasaland Times. Her family settled in Wimbledon, England when she was three. She was educated at The Study and Wimbledon High School. After reading biochemistry at Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford, where she attained a first-class degree, she became a partner in a City of London law firm. Her father’s death in 1996 prompted her to take a one-year sabbatical, during which she travelled around France and America and wrote her first book, Without Charity. She resigned from legal practice soon after her return, to concentrate on writing.

Her 2010 novel Dark Matter has been nominated for a Shirley Jackson Award for best novel.

Publications

  • Without Charity (2000)
  • A Place in the Hills (2001)
  • The Shadow Catcher (2002)
  • Fever Hill (2004)
  • The Serpent’s Tooth (2005)
  • Dark Matter (2010)
Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series
  • Wolf Brother (2004)
  • Spirit Walker (2005)
  • Soul Eater (2006)
  • Outcast (2007)
  • Oath Breaker (2008)
  • Ghost Hunter (2009)
Gods and Warriors series
  • The Outcasts (2013)/Gods and Warriors (2012 – Only first print carries this name.)
  • The Burning Shadow (August 2013)

Gods and Warriors

Michelle Paver’s new series of books for children is titled Gods and Warriors, set during the Bronze Age. It tells the story of Hylas, a 12-year-old goatherd, whose adventures take him to Ancient Crete and Ancient Egypt, and crucially features animals in the plot – a lion, a falcon and a dolphin.

The second book from Gods and Warriors is scheduled to be published in August 2013.