Max Porter

Hatchards and Daunt Books alumnus Max Porter achieved almost immediate success with his extraordinary debut of 2015, Grief is the Thing with Feathers. Concise and finely-wrought, this evocation of a Ted Hughes scholar, trying to come to terms with the death of his young wife, scored both the prestigious Sunday Times/Peters Fraser + Dunlop Young Writer of the Year Award and the International Dylan Thomas Prize. Ultimately the novel leaped to the Dublin stage in 2018, directed by Enda Walsh and starring Cillian Murphy.

Max Porter’s second book Lanny – an evocative fusion of myth, parenting, loss and friendship – was published in 2019 and shortlisted for the Waterstones Book of the Year. In 2021, it was followed by The Death of Francis Bacon, which depicts the final hours of the great painter in seven arresting and lyrical written pictures.