Roger Jon Ellory
Encyclopedia
Roger Jon Ellory is a British thriller writer. He was born in June 1965 in Birmingham
, England
.
, Michael Moorcock
, J. R. R. Tolkien
and Stephen King
as being some of the people who influenced his writing. He is an avid fan of BookCrossing
and apart from his work as an author, he is interested in music. He is currently a singer and guitar
player with a band called 'The Whiskey Poets'.
Ellory's father is unknown to him, having left the household before Ellory was born. He was raised by his mother and maternal grandmother, his maternal grandfather having been drowned in 1957 in Wales. Ellory's mother died as a result of a pneumonic haemorrhage in late 1971, the victim of a pneumonia
epidemic
that killed a number of people in the West Midlands
. Ellory was then sent to a number of different schools, and finally completed his education at Kingham Hill School in Oxfordshire, a school established by the Barings-Young banking family as a facility for 'wayward and orphaned children'.
Leaving this school at 16, Ellory returned to Birmingham where he pursued a diploma in graphic art and design at Bournville College of Art
. After one year, Ellory's maternal grandmother died in April 1982 and Ellory dropped out of college, failing to secure any qualifications.
Beside reading a great deal of fiction, Ellory then pursued an intense study of philosophy, religion, psychoanalytic techniques, psychology, drug rehabilitation techniques and associated physiological and mental therapies, including the works of Socrates
, Plato
, Kant
, Adler, Schopenhauer
, Freud
, Sartre
, Kierkegaard
, Gibran
, Descartes
, Dewey
and Hubbard. He also studied the works of Guatama Shakyamuni, Guatama Siddartha
, Krishnamurti
, the Tibetan Book of the Dead
, the collected works of Carlos Castaneda, the Bible
and the Bhagavad Gita
. He undertook courses in many aspects of these studies.
Ellory started writing in late 1987 and over the subsequent six years completed twenty-two novels, all of which were rejected by numerous publishers, both in the United Kingdom and the United States. He was told repeatedly that it was not commercially viable for a British writer to expect publication of novels set in America. Ellory stopped writing for eight years, but then resumed in late 2001, citing as his motivation a quote from Benjamin Disraeli that Success is entirely dependent upon constancy of purpose. He then penned a further three novels, the second of which was 'Candlemoth'. This was accepted for publication in June 2002 by Orion Publishing Group
and published in July 2003. It was also translated into German, Dutch and Italian. Ellory has gone on to publish a novel in each subsequent year, and his books are now available in more than twenty-five languages.
Award in the same year. Ghostheart was published in 2004 and A Quiet Vendetta was published in 2005.
In August 2006, Ellory's fourth novel was released, entitled City of Lies, and in the early part of 2007 it was shortlisted for the CWA Steel Dagger for Best Thriller.
Ellory's fifth novel A Quiet Belief In Angels was released on 22 August 2007. Hailed as an epic accomplishment, it garnered the following quote from fellow crime fiction author Michael Connelly
: "A Quiet Belief In Angels is a beautiful and haunting book. This is a tour-de-force from RJ Ellory."
A Quiet Belief In Angels was selected as one of the titles in the Richard & Judy
Bookclub 2008. This was officially announced on 27 December 2007, and Ellory's book was reviewed on the Channel 4 Richard & Judy Show on 30 January 2008. The additional advertising and promotion associated with the Richard & Judy shortlist introduced Ellory's work to a far wider audience.
A Quiet Belief In Angels has sold in excess of 1,000,000 copies since its release, and has also been purchased for translation into a total of twenty-three languages including French
, Japanese
, Norwegian
, Lithuanian
and Brazilian Portuguese
. It was ranked third in the Sunday Times bestselling book list in the week of its review on TV. It was shortlisted for the Barry Award
for best British crime fiction 2008, the 7th Prix Du Polar Européen 2008 of the weekly French magazine Le Point
, Le Nouvel Observateur Crime Writing Prize 2008 and the Quebec Booksellers' Prize 2008.
It was also selected for the final shortlist for the Inaugural Prix Du Roman Noir Du Nouvel Observateur 2009, alongside Dennis Lehane, Don Winslow, Carl Hiaasen and James Lee Burke. On 31 March 2009, RJ Ellory won the award for the French publication of A Quiet Belief In Angels, entitled Seul Le Silence.
Ellory's sixth book was released in October 2008, entitled A Simple Act of Violence (which went on to win Theakston's Crime Novel of the Year 2010), and his seventh book, The Anniversary Man was released on 3 September 2009. He has recently completed the screenplay for 'A Quiet Belief In Angels', commissioned by Olivier Dahan, Oscar-winning writer/director of 'La Vie En Rose'.
His eighth UK publication, 'Saints of New York' was released in September 2010, and the ninth, 'Bad Signs' is scheduled for release in October 2011.
A Quiet Belief in Angels, his fifth title, was shortlisted for the Barry Award for Best British Crime Fiction 2008. The novel was also shortlisted for the Association 813 Trophy, the 7th Prix Du Polar Europeen Du Point, the Mystery Booksellers of America Dilys Award, the Southern Independent Booksellers' Award 2010 and the Prix des Libraires Du Quebec Laureat 2009. It went on to win the Inaugural Roman Noir Nouvel Observateur Prize in 2008, the Best Thriller 2009 by New York's Strand Magazine
, along with the Livre De Poche Award and the USA National Indie Excellence Award for Best Mystery, both in 2010.
In the same year, A Quiet Vendetta won the Prix Des Libraires Du Quebec Laureat. Additionally, it won the Villenueve les Avignon Literary Festival Readers' Prize in 2010 and the St. Maur Prix Polar in 2011.
A Simple Act of Violence was shortlisted for the Barry Award
for Best British Crime Fiction 2009 and won the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award
for 2010.
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
.
Personal life
RJ Ellory is an author who lives in Birmingham in the United Kingdom. He cites Arthur Conan DoyleArthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle DL was a Scottish physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, generally considered a milestone in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger...
, Michael Moorcock
Michael Moorcock
Michael John Moorcock is an English writer, primarily of science fiction and fantasy, who has also published a number of literary novels....
, J. R. R. Tolkien
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...
and Stephen King
Stephen King
Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books...
as being some of the people who influenced his writing. He is an avid fan of BookCrossing
BookCrossing
BookCrossing is defined as "the practice of leaving a book in a public place to be picked up and read by others, who then do likewise." The term is derived from bookcrossing.com, a free online book club which began in order to encourage the practice, aiming to "make the whole world a library."The...
and apart from his work as an author, he is interested in music. He is currently a singer and guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
player with a band called 'The Whiskey Poets'.
Ellory's father is unknown to him, having left the household before Ellory was born. He was raised by his mother and maternal grandmother, his maternal grandfather having been drowned in 1957 in Wales. Ellory's mother died as a result of a pneumonic haemorrhage in late 1971, the victim of a pneumonia
Pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...
epidemic
Epidemic
In epidemiology, an epidemic , occurs when new cases of a certain disease, in a given human population, and during a given period, substantially exceed what is expected based on recent experience...
that killed a number of people in the West Midlands
West Midlands (county)
The West Midlands is a metropolitan county in western central England with a 2009 estimated population of 2,638,700. It came into existence as a metropolitan county in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972, formed from parts of Staffordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire. The...
. Ellory was then sent to a number of different schools, and finally completed his education at Kingham Hill School in Oxfordshire, a school established by the Barings-Young banking family as a facility for 'wayward and orphaned children'.
Leaving this school at 16, Ellory returned to Birmingham where he pursued a diploma in graphic art and design at Bournville College of Art
Bournville Centre for Visual Arts
The Bournville Centre for Visual Arts is an art school in Birmingham, England. It is located at Ruskin Hall on Linden Road in the area of Bournville...
. After one year, Ellory's maternal grandmother died in April 1982 and Ellory dropped out of college, failing to secure any qualifications.
Beside reading a great deal of fiction, Ellory then pursued an intense study of philosophy, religion, psychoanalytic techniques, psychology, drug rehabilitation techniques and associated physiological and mental therapies, including the works of Socrates
Socrates
Socrates was a classical Greek Athenian philosopher. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known chiefly through the accounts of later classical writers, especially the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon, and the plays of his contemporary ...
, Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
, Kant
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher from Königsberg , researching, lecturing and writing on philosophy and anthropology at the end of the 18th Century Enlightenment....
, Adler, Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher known for his pessimism and philosophical clarity. At age 25, he published his doctoral dissertation, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which examined the four separate manifestations of reason in the phenomenal...
, Freud
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
, Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...
, Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was a Danish Christian philosopher, theologian and religious author. He was a critic of idealist intellectuals and philosophers of his time, such as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling and Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel...
, Gibran
Khalil Gibran
Khalil Gibran Jubrān Khalīl Jubrān,Jibrān Khalīl Jibrān, or Jibrān Xalīl Jibrān; Arabic , January 6, 1883 – April 10, 1931) also known as Kahlil Gibran, was a Lebanese American artist, poet, and writer...
, Descartes
René Descartes
René Descartes ; was a French philosopher and writer who spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic. He has been dubbed the 'Father of Modern Philosophy', and much subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings, which are studied closely to this day...
, Dewey
John Dewey
John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey was an important early developer of the philosophy of pragmatism and one of the founders of functional psychology...
and Hubbard. He also studied the works of Guatama Shakyamuni, Guatama Siddartha
Gautama Buddha
Siddhārtha Gautama was a spiritual teacher from the Indian subcontinent, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. In most Buddhist traditions, he is regarded as the Supreme Buddha Siddhārtha Gautama (Sanskrit: सिद्धार्थ गौतम; Pali: Siddhattha Gotama) was a spiritual teacher from the Indian...
, Krishnamurti
Jiddu Krishnamurti
Jiddu Krishnamurti or J. Krishnamurti or , was a renowned writer and speaker on philosophical and spiritual subjects. His subject matter included: psychological revolution, the nature of the mind, meditation, human relationships, and bringing about positive change in society...
, the Tibetan Book of the Dead
Bardo Thodol
The Liberation Through Hearing During The Intermediate State , sometimes translated as Liberation Through Hearing or Bardo Thodol is a funerary text...
, the collected works of Carlos Castaneda, the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
and the Bhagavad Gita
Bhagavad Gita
The ' , also more simply known as Gita, is a 700-verse Hindu scripture that is part of the ancient Sanskrit epic, the Mahabharata, but is frequently treated as a freestanding text, and in particular, as an Upanishad in its own right, one of the several books that constitute general Vedic tradition...
. He undertook courses in many aspects of these studies.
Ellory started writing in late 1987 and over the subsequent six years completed twenty-two novels, all of which were rejected by numerous publishers, both in the United Kingdom and the United States. He was told repeatedly that it was not commercially viable for a British writer to expect publication of novels set in America. Ellory stopped writing for eight years, but then resumed in late 2001, citing as his motivation a quote from Benjamin Disraeli that Success is entirely dependent upon constancy of purpose. He then penned a further three novels, the second of which was 'Candlemoth'. This was accepted for publication in June 2002 by Orion Publishing Group
Orion Publishing Group
Orion Publishing Group Ltd. is a UK-based book publisher. It is owned by Hachette Livre. In 1998 Orion bought Cassell.-History:Full history of the group can be found on Orion Publishing Group is owned by -Imprints:...
and published in July 2003. It was also translated into German, Dutch and Italian. Ellory has gone on to publish a novel in each subsequent year, and his books are now available in more than twenty-five languages.
Published works
His first novel to be accepted for publication, Candlemoth, was published in 2003 and was shortlisted for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel DaggerCWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger
The CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger is an annual award given by the British Crime Writers' Association for best thriller of the year. The award is sponsored by the estate of Ian Fleming and is given to "best adventure/thriller novel in the vein of James Bond"....
Award in the same year. Ghostheart was published in 2004 and A Quiet Vendetta was published in 2005.
In August 2006, Ellory's fourth novel was released, entitled City of Lies, and in the early part of 2007 it was shortlisted for the CWA Steel Dagger for Best Thriller.
Ellory's fifth novel A Quiet Belief In Angels was released on 22 August 2007. Hailed as an epic accomplishment, it garnered the following quote from fellow crime fiction author Michael Connelly
Michael Connelly
Michael Connelly is an American author of detective novels and other crime fiction, notably those featuring LAPD Detective Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch and criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller. His books, which have been translated into 36 languages, have garnered him many awards...
: "A Quiet Belief In Angels is a beautiful and haunting book. This is a tour-de-force from RJ Ellory."
A Quiet Belief In Angels was selected as one of the titles in the Richard & Judy
Richard & Judy
Richard & Judy was a British magazine/chat show which was presented by married couple Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan. It originally aired on Channel 4 from 2001 to 2008 but later moved to digital channel Watch in October 2008. It featured the world's most famous stars, along with their Book Club...
Bookclub 2008. This was officially announced on 27 December 2007, and Ellory's book was reviewed on the Channel 4 Richard & Judy Show on 30 January 2008. The additional advertising and promotion associated with the Richard & Judy shortlist introduced Ellory's work to a far wider audience.
A Quiet Belief In Angels has sold in excess of 1,000,000 copies since its release, and has also been purchased for translation into a total of twenty-three languages including French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
, Norwegian
Norwegian language
Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...
, Lithuanian
Lithuanian language
Lithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they...
and Brazilian Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese is a group of Portuguese dialects written and spoken by most of the 190 million inhabitants of Brazil and by a few million Brazilian emigrants, mainly in the United States, United Kingdom, Portugal, Canada, Japan and Paraguay....
. It was ranked third in the Sunday Times bestselling book list in the week of its review on TV. It was shortlisted for the Barry Award
Barry Award (for crime novels)
The Barry Award is a crime literary prize awarded annually since 1997 by the editors of Deadly Pleasures, an American quarterly publication for crime fiction readers. From 2007-2009 the award was jointly presented with the publication Mystery News...
for best British crime fiction 2008, the 7th Prix Du Polar Européen 2008 of the weekly French magazine Le Point
Le Point
Le Point is a French weekly news magazine. It was founded in 1972 by a group of journalists who had, one year earlier, left the editorial team of L'Express, which was then owned by Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber, a député of the Parti Radical...
, Le Nouvel Observateur Crime Writing Prize 2008 and the Quebec Booksellers' Prize 2008.
It was also selected for the final shortlist for the Inaugural Prix Du Roman Noir Du Nouvel Observateur 2009, alongside Dennis Lehane, Don Winslow, Carl Hiaasen and James Lee Burke. On 31 March 2009, RJ Ellory won the award for the French publication of A Quiet Belief In Angels, entitled Seul Le Silence.
Ellory's sixth book was released in October 2008, entitled A Simple Act of Violence (which went on to win Theakston's Crime Novel of the Year 2010), and his seventh book, The Anniversary Man was released on 3 September 2009. He has recently completed the screenplay for 'A Quiet Belief In Angels', commissioned by Olivier Dahan, Oscar-winning writer/director of 'La Vie En Rose'.
His eighth UK publication, 'Saints of New York' was released in September 2010, and the ninth, 'Bad Signs' is scheduled for release in October 2011.
Awards
In 2003, Ellory's debut novel Candlemoth was shortlisted for the CWA Steel Dagger for Best Thriller. This followed with his fourth book City of Lies being shortlisted for the same award in 2006.A Quiet Belief in Angels, his fifth title, was shortlisted for the Barry Award for Best British Crime Fiction 2008. The novel was also shortlisted for the Association 813 Trophy, the 7th Prix Du Polar Europeen Du Point, the Mystery Booksellers of America Dilys Award, the Southern Independent Booksellers' Award 2010 and the Prix des Libraires Du Quebec Laureat 2009. It went on to win the Inaugural Roman Noir Nouvel Observateur Prize in 2008, the Best Thriller 2009 by New York's Strand Magazine
Strand Magazine
The Strand Magazine was a monthly magazine composed of fictional stories and factual articles founded by George Newnes. It was first published in the United Kingdom from January 1891 to March 1950 running to 711 issues, though the first issue was on sale well before Christmas 1890.Its immediate...
, along with the Livre De Poche Award and the USA National Indie Excellence Award for Best Mystery, both in 2010.
In the same year, A Quiet Vendetta won the Prix Des Libraires Du Quebec Laureat. Additionally, it won the Villenueve les Avignon Literary Festival Readers' Prize in 2010 and the St. Maur Prix Polar in 2011.
A Simple Act of Violence was shortlisted for the Barry Award
Barry Award (for crime novels)
The Barry Award is a crime literary prize awarded annually since 1997 by the editors of Deadly Pleasures, an American quarterly publication for crime fiction readers. From 2007-2009 the award was jointly presented with the publication Mystery News...
for Best British Crime Fiction 2009 and won the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award
Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award
The Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award is a crime-fiction award, sponsored by Theakston's Old Peculier. It is awarded annually at Harrogate Crime Writing Festival in the UK, held every July. The winner receives £3000 and a small hand-carved oak beer cask carved by one of...
for 2010.
Works
- Candlemoth ISBN 0-7528-5666-9
- Ghostheart ISBN 0-7528-6409-2
- A Quiet Vendetta ISBN 0-75286-060-7
- City of Lies ISBN 0-75287-366-0
- A Quiet Belief in Angels ISBN 0-7528-8263-5
- A Simple Act of Violence ISBN 0-7528-9190-3
- The Anniversary Man ISBN 0-7528-9874-4
- Saints of New York ISBN 978-1-4091-0474-2
- Bad Signs ISBN 978-14091-0476-6
External links
- www.rjellory.com (His homepage)
- http://www.shotsmag.co.uk/features2005/rj_ellory/quietvendetta.html
- An interview with Roger Jon Ellory.