Hugo Hamilton

Hugo Hamilton was born in Dun Laoghaire in 1953. His mother came to Ireland as a governess for a wealthy family, and his father was a German-speaking engineer who planned to raise his children bilingually (German-Irish). After school, Hamilton worked as a journalist but soon left for Germany, where he worked at a publishing house. His first novel, "Surrogate City" (1990), tells the story of an Irish woman's adventure in Berlin as she searches for the father of her unborn child. "Last Shot" (1991), which won him the Rooney Prize, is about a love story set in the final years of World War II. "The Love Test" (1994) explores the collapse of a marriage following the fall of the Berlin Wall. This was followed by "Dublin, Where the Palm Trees Grow" (1996), a collection of short stories, and the crime thrillers "Headbanger" (1997) and "Sad Bastard" (1998), featuring the detective Pat Coyne (Mr. Suicide). In 2003, Hamilton published "The Speckled People," an autobiographical account of his childhood, for which he was awarded the French Femina Prize for the best foreign novel. He lives in Dublin.