Donald Thomas

D.M. (Don Michael) Thomas was born in Cornwall in 1935. He studied English literature at New College, Oxford, taught for a time at Hereford College of Education, and then dedicated himself to writing. His third novel, "The Flute-player" (1979), won first prize in the Collancz Pan/Picador competition (preceded by "Two Voices," 1968, and "The Rock," 1975). "The White Hotel" was shortlisted for the Booker McConnell Prize in 1981. Other well-known works include "Ararat," 1983, "Swallow," 1984, "Sphinx," 1986, "Summit," 1987, "Pictures at an Exhibition," 1993, "Eating Pavlova," 1994, "Lady with a Laptop," 1996, and the novella "Charlotte," 2000, as well as the biography "Solzhenitsyn: A Century in his Life," 1998. D.M. Thomas has also published 17 poetry books from 1964 to the present, including two collections of selected poems ("Selected Poems," Secker & Warburg, 1983, and "The Puberty Tree: Selected Poems," Bloodaxe, 1992). His latest poetry collection is titled "Dear Shadows" (Fal, 2004). He is also known for translating poems by Pushkin and Akhmatova from Russian into English. He resides in Cornwall.