David Peace
Encyclopedia
David Peace is an English
author
. Known for his novels GB84, The Damned Utd
, and Red Riding Quartet, Peace was named one of the Best of Young British Novelists by Granta
in their 2003 list. Peace, however, attracted unwanted attention for The Damned Utd when one of the protagonists from the book, Johnny Giles
, successfully sued him for libel in the High Court in 2008.
, West Yorkshire
. He was educated at Batley Grammar School
and Manchester Polytechnic, which he left in 1991 to go to Istanbul
to teach English. He moved to Tokyo
in 1994 and returned to the UK in 2009.
The Red-Riding Quartet comprises the novels Nineteen Seventy-Four (1999), Nineteen Seventy-Seven (2000), Nineteen Eighty (2001) and Nineteen Eighty-Three (2002). The books deal with police corruption
, and are set against a backdrop of the Yorkshire Ripper
murders between 1975 and 1980. They feature several recurring characters. Red Riding
, a three-part TV adaptation of the series, aired on Channel 4
in the UK in 2009.
Peace followed the quartet with GB84 (2004). This is a fictional portrayal of the year of the UK miners' strike (1984–1985)
. It describes the insidious workings of the British government and MI5
, the coalfield battles, the struggle for influence in government and the dwindling powers of the National Union of Mineworkers. The book was awarded the prestigious James Tait Black Memorial Prize
for literature in 2005.
He followed GB84 with another fact-based fictional piece, The Damned Utd
(2006), which is based on Brian Clough
's fateful 44-day spell in 1974 as manager of Leeds United Football Club
. Entering the mind of the man who many regard as a football genius, Peace tells the story of a man characterised by a fear of failure and a hunger for success. Peace has described it as an "occult history of Leeds United". Former footballer and manager Johnny Giles
successfully sued Peace for The Damned Utd as to what he perceived were gross untruths in the book. As part of the settling in the 2008 High Court dispute, the publisher of The Damned Utd, Faber and Faber
, were ordered to remove from any future editions the references perceived by Giles as damaging and untrue.
Peace is a supporter of Huddersfield Town
, a club who are a local rival of Leeds United, and the team that Leeds United played in Clough's first and last games in charge of the club. The Damned Utd has been made into a film entitled The Damned United
, with Michael Sheen
playing Brian Clough.
Tokyo Year Zero (2007) follows the investigations of a Tokyo detective in the aftermath of Japan
's defeat in World War II
. It is based on the true story of serial killer
Yoshio Kodaira
. It is the first of Peace's novels to be set outside of Yorkshire and forms the first part of a trio of books on the US military occupation of Japan. The second book, published in August 2009, is called Occupied City, a Rashomon
-like telling of the Hirasawa Sadamichi case in Tokyo in 1948. The final book is titled Tokyo Regained.
Peace's future plans include UKDK, about the changing face of UK politics, set around the fall of Harold Wilson
and rise of Margaret Thatcher
, and titles possibly including The Yorkshire Rippers and Nineteen Forty Seven. He has also begun preparing a novel about Geoffrey Boycott
and his relationship with Yorkshire County Cricket Club
and England
. He intends to stop writing novels after his twelfth novel but has joked he may publish a collection of his "very bad poetry".
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
. Known for his novels GB84, The Damned Utd
The Damned Utd
The Damned Utd is a novel by British author David Peace. The main plot depicts a fictionalised account of Brian Clough's brief spell as manager of Leeds United football club in 1974.-Plot:...
, and Red Riding Quartet, Peace was named one of the Best of Young British Novelists by Granta
Granta
Granta is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centers on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story’s supreme ability to describe, illuminate and make real." In 2007, The Observer stated, "In its blend of...
in their 2003 list. Peace, however, attracted unwanted attention for The Damned Utd when one of the protagonists from the book, Johnny Giles
Johnny Giles
Michael John "Johnny" Giles is a former association footballer and manager best remembered for his time as a midfielder with Leeds United in the 1960s and 1970s...
, successfully sued him for libel in the High Court in 2008.
Biography
David Peace grew up in OssettOssett
Ossett is a market town within the metropolitan borough of the City of Wakefield, in West Yorkshire, England. It is located on junction 40 of the M1 motorway, half-way between Dewsbury, to the west, and Wakefield, to the east. In the 2001 census, it was classified as part of the West Yorkshire...
, West Yorkshire
West Yorkshire
West Yorkshire is a metropolitan county within the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England with a population of 2.2 million. West Yorkshire came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972....
. He was educated at Batley Grammar School
Batley Grammar School
Batley Grammar School is a co-educational school located at Carlinghow Hill in Upper Batley, West Yorkshire, England. The school was founded in 1612 by the Rev. William Lee...
and Manchester Polytechnic, which he left in 1991 to go to Istanbul
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...
to teach English. He moved to Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
in 1994 and returned to the UK in 2009.
The Red-Riding Quartet comprises the novels Nineteen Seventy-Four (1999), Nineteen Seventy-Seven (2000), Nineteen Eighty (2001) and Nineteen Eighty-Three (2002). The books deal with police corruption
Police corruption
Police corruption is a specific form of police misconduct designed to obtain financial benefits, other personal gain, or career advancement for a police officer or officers in exchange for not pursuing, or selectively pursuing, an investigation or arrest....
, and are set against a backdrop of the Yorkshire Ripper
Peter Sutcliffe
Peter William Sutcliffe is a British serial killer who was dubbed "The Yorkshire Ripper". In 1981 Sutcliffe was convicted of murdering 13 women and attacking seven others. He is currently serving 20 sentences of life imprisonment in Broadmoor Hospital...
murders between 1975 and 1980. They feature several recurring characters. Red Riding
Red Riding
Red Riding is a television adaptation of English author David Peace's Red Riding Quartet. Published between 1999 and 2002, the quartet comprises the novels Nineteen Seventy-Four , Nineteen Seventy-Seven , Nineteen Eighty and Nineteen Eighty-Three...
, a three-part TV adaptation of the series, aired on Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
in the UK in 2009.
Peace followed the quartet with GB84 (2004). This is a fictional portrayal of the year of the UK miners' strike (1984–1985)
UK miners' strike (1984–1985)
The UK miners' strike was a major industrial action affecting the British coal industry. It was a defining moment in British industrial relations, and its defeat significantly weakened the British trades union movement...
. It describes the insidious workings of the British government and MI5
MI5
The Security Service, commonly known as MI5 , is the United Kingdom's internal counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its core intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service focused on foreign threats, Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence...
, the coalfield battles, the struggle for influence in government and the dwindling powers of the National Union of Mineworkers. The book was awarded the prestigious James Tait Black Memorial Prize
James Tait Black Memorial Prize
Founded in 1919, the James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are among the oldest and most prestigious book prizes awarded for literature written in the English language and are Britain's oldest literary awards...
for literature in 2005.
He followed GB84 with another fact-based fictional piece, The Damned Utd
The Damned Utd
The Damned Utd is a novel by British author David Peace. The main plot depicts a fictionalised account of Brian Clough's brief spell as manager of Leeds United football club in 1974.-Plot:...
(2006), which is based on Brian Clough
Brian Clough
Brian Howard Clough, OBE was an English footballer and football manager. He is most notable for his success with Derby County and Nottingham Forest. His achievement of winning back-to-back European Cups with Nottingham Forest, a traditionally moderate provincial English club, is considered to be...
's fateful 44-day spell in 1974 as manager of Leeds United Football Club
Leeds United A.F.C.
Leeds United Association Football Club are an English professional association football club based in Beeston, Leeds, West Yorkshire, who play in the Football League Championship, the second tier of the English football league system...
. Entering the mind of the man who many regard as a football genius, Peace tells the story of a man characterised by a fear of failure and a hunger for success. Peace has described it as an "occult history of Leeds United". Former footballer and manager Johnny Giles
Johnny Giles
Michael John "Johnny" Giles is a former association footballer and manager best remembered for his time as a midfielder with Leeds United in the 1960s and 1970s...
successfully sued Peace for The Damned Utd as to what he perceived were gross untruths in the book. As part of the settling in the 2008 High Court dispute, the publisher of The Damned Utd, Faber and Faber
Faber and Faber
Faber and Faber Limited, often abbreviated to Faber, is an independent publishing house in the UK, notable in particular for publishing a great deal of poetry and for its former editor T. S. Eliot. Faber has a rich tradition of publishing a wide range of fiction, non fiction, drama, film and music...
, were ordered to remove from any future editions the references perceived by Giles as damaging and untrue.
Peace is a supporter of Huddersfield Town
Huddersfield Town F.C.
Huddersfield Town Football Club is an English football club formed in 1908 and based in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire. They currently play in League One...
, a club who are a local rival of Leeds United, and the team that Leeds United played in Clough's first and last games in charge of the club. The Damned Utd has been made into a film entitled The Damned United
The Damned United
The Damned United is a 2009 British sports drama film directed by Tom Hooper and adapted by Peter Morgan from David Peace's bestselling novel The Damned Utd, a largely fictional book based on the author's interpretation of Brian Clough's tenure as manager of Leeds United...
, with Michael Sheen
Michael Sheen
Michael Christopher Sheen, OBE , is a Welsh stage and screen actor. He trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, England and made his professional debut opposite Vanessa Redgrave in When She Danced at the Globe Theatre in 1991...
playing Brian Clough.
Tokyo Year Zero (2007) follows the investigations of a Tokyo detective in the aftermath of Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
's defeat in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. It is based on the true story of serial killer
Serial killer
A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...
Yoshio Kodaira
Yoshio Kodaira
was a Japanese rapist and serial killer. He killed one person in 1932 and was later sentenced to death after being convicted of killing seven others in 1945 and 1946.- Life as a soldier :...
. It is the first of Peace's novels to be set outside of Yorkshire and forms the first part of a trio of books on the US military occupation of Japan. The second book, published in August 2009, is called Occupied City, a Rashomon
Rashomon (film)
The bandit's storyTajōmaru, a notorious brigand , claims that he tricked the samurai to step off the mountain trail with him and look at a cache of ancient swords he discovered. In the grove he tied the samurai to a tree, then brought the woman there. She initially tried to defend herself with a...
-like telling of the Hirasawa Sadamichi case in Tokyo in 1948. The final book is titled Tokyo Regained.
Peace's future plans include UKDK, about the changing face of UK politics, set around the fall of Harold Wilson
Harold Wilson
James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, FSS, PC was a British Labour Member of Parliament, Leader of the Labour Party. He was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the 1960s and 1970s, winning four general elections, including a minority government after the...
and rise of Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
, and titles possibly including The Yorkshire Rippers and Nineteen Forty Seven. He has also begun preparing a novel about Geoffrey Boycott
Geoffrey Boycott
Geoffrey Boycott OBE is a former Yorkshire and England cricketer. In a prolific and sometimes controversial playing career from 1962 to 1986, Boycott established himself as one of England's most successful opening batsmen...
and his relationship with Yorkshire County Cricket Club
Yorkshire County Cricket Club
Yorkshire County Cricket Club represents the historic county of Yorkshire as one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the English and Welsh domestic cricket structure....
and England
English cricket team
The England and Wales cricket team is a cricket team which represents England and Wales. Until 1992 it also represented Scotland. Since 1 January 1997 it has been governed by the England and Wales Cricket Board , having been previously governed by Marylebone Cricket Club from 1903 until the end...
. He intends to stop writing novels after his twelfth novel but has joked he may publish a collection of his "very bad poetry".
Red Riding Quartet
- 1999 Nineteen Seventy-Four
- 2000 Nineteen Seventy-Seven
- 2001 Nineteen Eighty
- 2002 Nineteen Eighty-Three
Tokyo Trilogy
- 2007 Tokyo Year Zero
- 2009 Occupied City
- 2011 Tokyo Regained