David Mitchell

Author profile

born

in Southport, Merseyside, England, The United Kingdom

January 12, 1969

gender

male

website

http://www.thousandautumns.com/

genre

Literature & Fiction

influences

John Banville, Muriel Spark, Haruki Murakami, Paul Auster, Don DeLillo...more

About this author

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Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

David Mitchell was born in Southport, Merseyside, in England, raised in Malvern, Worcestershire, and educated at the University of Kent. He received a degree in English and American Literature, followed by an M.A. in Comparative Literature.

He lived for a year in Sicily, then moved to Hiroshima, Japan, where he taught English to technical students for eight years, before returning to England. After another stint in Japan, he currently lives in Ireland with his wife Keiko and their two children.

In an essay for Random House, Mitchell wrote:

"I knew I wanted to be a writer since I was a kid, but until I came to Japan to li...more Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

David Mitchell was born in Southport, Merseyside, in England, raised in Malvern, Worcestershire, and educated at the University of Kent. He received a degree in English and American Literature, followed by an M.A. in Comparative Literature.

He lived for a year in Sicily, then moved to Hiroshima, Japan, where he taught English to technical students for eight years, before returning to England. After another stint in Japan, he currently lives in Ireland with his wife Keiko and their two children.

In an essay for Random House, Mitchell wrote:

"I knew I wanted to be a writer since I was a kid, but until I came to Japan to live in 1994 I was too easily distracted to do much about it. I would probably have become a writer wherever I lived, but would I have become the same writer if I'd spent the last 6 years in London, or Cape Town, or Moose Jaw, on an oil rig or in the circus? This is my answer to myself."

Mitchell's first novel, Ghostwritten (1999), moves around the globe, from Okinawa to Mongolia to pre-Millennial New York City, as nine narrators tell stories that interlock and intersect. The novel won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize (for best work of British literature written by an author under 35) and was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award.

His two subsequent novels, number9dream (2001) and Cloud Atlas (2004), were both shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. In 2003, he was selected as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists. In 2007, Mitchell was listed among Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in The World.

Mitchell's American editor at Random House is novelist David Ebershoff. He lists John Banville, Muriel Spark, Haruki Murakami, Paul Auster, Don DeLillo, Russell Hoban, Italo Calvino, Peter Carey, George Orwell, Vladimir Nabokov, Jorge Luis Borges, Richard Wright, Mikhail Bulgakov, and Ursula K. Le Guin among his many literary influences.(less)

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David Mitchell's Books

Average rating: 4.02 · 119,812 ratings · 16,585 reviews · 22 distinct works · Similar authors

	Cloud Atlas 4.07 of 5 stars 4.07 avg rating — 68,838 ratings — published 2004 — 90 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet 3.99 of 5 stars 3.99 avg rating — 19,738 ratings — published 2010 — 41 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Black Swan Green 3.96 of 5 stars 3.96 avg rating — 13,340 ratings — published 2006 — 42 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Ghostwritten 4.07 of 5 stars 4.07 avg rating — 8,413 ratings — published 1999 — 21 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	number9dream 3.93 of 5 stars 3.93 avg rating — 6,977 ratings — published 2001 — 24 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	David Mitchell: Backstory 4.11 of 5 stars 4.11 avg rating — 9 ratings	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Gardener by David Mitchell, Chris Moran (narrator) 4.17 of 5 stars 4.17 avg rating — 6 ratings — published 2011	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Cloud Atlas Vol. 1 of 2 4.8 of 5 stars 4.80 avg rating — 5 ratings — published 2010	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Cloud Atlas Vol. 2 of 2 4.75 of 5 stars 4.75 avg rating — 4 ratings — published 2010	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Dimsum (Asia's Literary Journal, Volume 12, Autumn 2005 by David Mitchell, Pico Iyer, Nury Vittachi (editor) 4.5 of 5 stars 4.50 avg rating — 2 ratings — published 2005	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by David Mitchell…

Series by David Mitchell

Cloud Atlas (2 books)
by David Mitchell
4.777777777777778 of 5 stars 4.78 avg rating — 9 ratings

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Interviews

July 2010, David Mitchell
"Historical fiction isn't easy; it's not just another genre. How are they going to speak? If you get that too right, it sounds like a pastiche comedy—people are saying "thou" and "prithee" and "gadzooks," which they did say, but to an early 21st-century audience, it's laughable, even though it's accurate." ...More

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Quotes by David Mitchell

“A half-read book is a half-finished love affair.”
― David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

tags: books, love, reading

1,233 people liked it

“My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?”
― David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

968 people liked it

“Our lives are not our own. We are bound to others, past and present, and by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future.”
― David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

696 people liked it

See all David Mitchell's quotes »

Polls

What would you like to read for May's group read? The theme is decades.

Cloud Atlasby David Mitchell

31 votes 18.2%

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

29 votes 17.1%

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

22 votes 12.9%

Fall of Giants by Ken Follett

18 votes 10.6%

The Future of Us by Jay Asher

15 votes 8.8%

The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer

14 votes 8.2%

The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau

12 votes 7.1%

The Duke and I by Julia Quinn

8 votes 4.7%

A Million Little Pieces by James Frey

8 votes 4.7%

The Giving Treeby Shel Silverstein

8 votes 4.7%

170 total votes

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David Mitchell

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Series by David Mitchell

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Interviews

Quotes by David Mitchell

Polls

Topics Mentioning This Author

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David's Fans (2382)

David Mitchell

Author profile

combine editionsDavid Mitchell's Books

Series by David Mitchell

Upcoming Events

Interviews

Quotes by David Mitchell

Polls

Topics Mentioning This Author

Add New
Videos

combine editions
David Mitchell's Books