Life

Harrison was born in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 to actors Rex Harrison

Rex Harrison

Sir Reginald Carey “Rex” Harrison was an English actor of stage and screen. Harrison won an Academy Award and two Tony Awards.-Youth and stage career:...

 and Lilli Palmer

Lilli Palmer

Lilli Palmer , born Lilli Marie Peiser, was a German actress. She won the Volpi Cup, the Deutscher Filmpreis three times, and was nominated twice for a Golden Globe Award.-Life and career:...

, and raised in Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 and New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, where he attended the Lycée Français. Subsequently, in Britain, he attended Sunningdale School

Sunningdale School

Sunningdale School is a family-run boys' preparatory independent school of around 100 pupils, situated in Sunningdale in Berkshire, close to London, England.-Introduction:...

, Harrow School

Harrow School

Harrow School, commonly known simply as "Harrow", is an English independent school for boys situated in the town of Harrow, in north-west London.. The school is of worldwide renown. There is some evidence that there has been a school on the site since 1243 but the Harrow School we know today was...

, and Jesus College, Cambridge

Jesus College, Cambridge

Jesus College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The College was founded in 1496 on the site of a Benedictine nunnery by John Alcock, then Bishop of Ely...

.

He is currently artistic director of The Woodstock Players. His first play, Dante Kaputt, was staged at the Phoenix Theatre, Leicester

Leicester

Leicester is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England, and the county town of Leicestershire. The city lies on the River Soar and at the edge of the National Forest...

, in 1966. Subsequent plays were premiered at the Traverse Theatre

Traverse Theatre

The Traverse Theatre is a theatre in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was founded in 1963.The Traverse Theatre commissions and develops new plays or adaptations from contemporary playwrights. It also presents a large number of productions from visiting companies from across the UK. These include new plays,...

, Edinburgh

Edinburgh

Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

 and the Stables Theatre Club in Manchester, where Harrison was Resident Playwright during 1969 and '70. His drama output for radio and television includes numerous award-winning plays, among them the WorldPlay award-winner in 2005 for the best play from an English-language broadcaster, worldwide. This play, Hitler in Therapy, was Harrison's 100th drama to be recorded in a UK studio. A more recent play, A Cook's Tour of Communism, was broadcast by the BBC World Service in 2008. His most recent radio drama, Breakfast With Stalin, was premiered in 2010 by Westdeutscher Rundfunk Koeln in Germany, where 16 of Harrison's plays have been broadcast in translation. During 2009, a new stage play, Scenes From a Misunderstanding, a comedy about the relationship between Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, was premiered at the Jewish Theatre Festival in Manhattan, and subsequently re-mounted at the Byrdcliffe Theater in Woodstock, NY, along with Bad Boy, a companion piece written for the New York cast. A subsequent play, Magus, was staged by The Woodstock Players in June 2010, and another, Midget In A Catsuit Reciting Spinoza, in June 2011. His new play, Hedgerow Specimen, will be staged by The Woodstock Players in June 2012.

17 hours of Harrison's teleplays have been seen on Masterpiece Theatre

Masterpiece Theatre

Masterpiece is a drama anthology television series produced by WGBH Boston. It premiered on Public Broadcasting Service on January 10, 1971, making it America's longest-running weekly prime time drama series. The series has presented numerous acclaimed British productions...

, including the miniseries Freud.

He is the author of 35 stage plays and 16 novels, most notably Richard's Feet, published by Holt in the U.S. and by Heinemann in Britain, winner of the Encore Award

Encore Award

The £10,000 Encore Award for the best second novel - now awarded biennially - was first awarded in 1990. It is administered by the Society of Authors and is sponsored by Lucy Astor. The award fills a niche in the catalogue of literary prizes by celebrating the achievement of outstanding second...

 from the UK Society of Authors

Society of Authors

The Society of Authors is a trade union for professional writers that was founded in 1884 to protect the rights of writers and fight to retain those rights .It has counted amongst its members and presidents numerous notable writers and poets including Tennyson The Society of Authors (UK) is a...

. Harrison has received numerous grants from the UK Arts Council

Arts council

An arts council is a government or private, non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the arts mainly by funding local artists, awarding prizes, and organizing events at home and abroad...

, and his prizes include Sony Radio Academy Awards

Sony Radio Academy Awards

The Sony Radio Academy Awards , started in 1983, are some of the most prestigious awards in the British radio industry. They are run by ZAFER Associates in association with the Radio Academy...

, the Giles Cooper Award, the Prix Marulic, the UK Writers' Guild Award for Best Play, the Prix Italia

Prix Italia

The Prix Italia is an international Italian television, radio-broadcasting and Website award. It was established in 1948 by RAI - Radiotelevisione Italiana in Capri...

 Silver Award and the Best Play award from the Berlin Akademie der Kuenste, as well as two nominations (2005 and 2007) for the Pushcart Prize

Pushcart Prize

The Pushcart Prize is an American literary prize by Pushcart Press that honors the best "poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot" published in the small presses over the previous year. Magazine and small book press editors are invited to nominate up to 6 works they have featured....

 for Journalism. His work has been translated into thirteen languages. His output includes published translations from French, Italian, German and Spanish authors, and performed translations from the works of Pirandello, Goldoni, Feydeau and the late Gert Hofmann; most recently he published 20 Poems from the Arabic of Firas Sulaiman, in Banipal

Banipal

Banipal is an independent literary magazine dedicated to the promotion of contemporary Arab literature through translations in English. It was founded in London in 1998 by Margaret Obank and Samuel Shimon. The magazine is published three times a year...

, the UK magazine of contemporary Arabic writing. Since 2005 he has contributed a monthly essay on linguistic trends in The Vocabula Review

The Vocabula Review

The Vocabula Review is an electronic journal about the state of the English language.-Publication:The journal is published online by the Vocabula Communications Company, on or about the third Sunday of each month. Robert Hartwell Fiske is the editor and publisher of Vocabula...

, and since November 2011, a monthly column on fiction-writing in Roll

Roll

To roll means to move along a surface by revolving or turning over and over.Roll or rolls may also refer to:-People:* Alfred Philippe Roll , French painter...

magazine, online. Harrison's essays have appeared in magazines as diverse as New Politics

New Politics (magazine)

New Politics is an independent socialist journal founded in 1961 and still published in the United States today. While it is inclusive of articles from a variety of left-of-center positions, the publication leans strongly toward a Third camp, democratic Marxist perspective, placing it typically to...

: a journal of socialist thought, and Chronicles

Chronicles (magazine)

Chronicles is a U.S. monthly magazine published by the Rockford Institute. Its full current name is Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture. The magazine is known for promoting anti-globalism, anti-intervention and anti-immigration stances within conservative politics, and is considered one of...

: a paleoconservative magazine of American culture. He has also been a book reviewer for numerous newspapers and journals including the San Francisco Chronicle

San Francisco Chronicle

thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...

, the Chicago Tribune

Chicago Tribune

The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...

, the New York Sunday Times and the London Review of Books

London Review of Books

The London Review of Books is a fortnightly British magazine of literary and intellectual essays.-History:The LRB was founded in 1979, during the year-long lock-out at The Times, by publisher A...

.

He is currently working on a commission from the San Francisco Opera House, to write the libretto for a new opera based on Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden, to music by Nolan Gasser.

Harrison lives in upstate New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 with his wife and youngest daughter, and is Professor of English at Brooklyn College

Brooklyn College

Brooklyn College is a senior college of the City University of New York, located in Brooklyn, New York, United States.Established in 1930 by the New York City Board of Higher Education, the College had its beginnings as the Downtown Brooklyn branches of Hunter College and the City College of New...

 of the City University of New York

City University of New York

The City University of New York is the public university system of New York City, with its administrative offices in Yorkville in Manhattan. It is the largest urban university in the United States, consisting of 23 institutions: 11 senior colleges, six community colleges, the William E...

. Under the name Ustaz Omar Bey he is Bishop of Woodstock in the Moorish Orthodox Church of America

Moorish Orthodox Church of America

The Moorish Orthodox Church of America is a syncretic religious body espousing an ostensibly Eastern Christian liturgical and devotional tradition laid over a theology consisting of teachings gleaned from Ismaili Islam, Sufism , Tantra and Vedanta teachings...

.

To learn more about Harrison's work and read excerpts from novels and plays, visit his website at http://www.midgetinacatsuit.com.

Novels

• Freud (1984)
• Richard's Feet (1990)
• Cley (1991)
• Egon (1993)
• Flatbroke and Vine (2005)
• Dog's Mercury (2005)
• A Perfect Innocent (2005)
• Justice (2005)
• Personal Assistant (2006)
• Clear To Kill (2006)
• As An Unperfect Actor On The Stage (2006)

Plays

• Dante Kaputt! (1966)
• Twenty-Six Efforts at Pornography (1968)
• Servant of Two Masters (from Goldoni) (1978)
• In a Cottage Hospital (1969)
• Wedding Night (from Gert Hoffmann) (1969)
• Lovers (1970)
• Shakespeare Farewell (1970)
• The Bequest (1971)
• Manoeuvres (with Jeremy Paul) (1974)
• Madcap (from Pirandello) (1976)
• I Never Killed My German (1979)
• A Short Walk To The Stars (with Jeremy Paul) (1979)
• Visitors (with Jeremy Paul) (1980)
• A Night on the Tor (1980)
• A Suffolk Trilogy: 3 Plays for Radio (1982)
• Who's Playing God? (1983)
• I Killed Jacques Brel (1984)
• From the Lion Rock & the Sea Voyage Trilogy: Plays for Radio (1989)
• Mr Pope's Toilet (1990)
• The Water-Cure (1991)
• Newton In Love (1992)
• Last Thoughts Upon St. Paules (1993)
• Self-Portrait With Dog (1993)
• A Walk in the Bois (1993)
• The Empress Wu, The Concubine Wang (1994)
• St. Agnes' Eve (1995)
• For A Son (1995)
• A Call From The Dead (1995)
• The Psychiatrist's Tale (1996)
• East of the Sun (2000)
• Richard's Feet (2003)
• Hitler in Therapy (2005)
• A Cook's Tour of Communism (2008)
• Breakfast With Stalin (2008)
• Scenes From a Misunderstanding (2009)
• Bad Boy (2009)
• Midget In A Catsuit Reciting Spinoza (2009)
• Magus (2010)
• Hedgerow Specimen (2011)

Screenplays

• The Sea Change (1965)
• Sabbatical (1968)
• The Godson (1981)
• Imaginary Friends (1981)
• Jumping The Queue (1984)
• I Never Killed My German (1986)
• French Cricket (with Jeremy Paul) (1986)
• William (1987)
• Cley (1988)
• Borgia (1990)
• Egon (1995)
• Breaking Up (Is Hard To Do) (2007)
• The Stand-In (with John Keller) (2008)

External links