Background

Alan Garner was born on October 17, 1934, in Congleton, Cheshire, England, United Kingdom to Colin and Marjorie Garner into a family of craftsmen who has lived for several generations near Alderley Edge in Cheshire, England, Garner proved unsuited for pursuing the way of life that had been in his family for many years.

Education

Following an education at Manchester Grammar School, Garner attended Magdalen College, Oxford, where he read classics. He returned to Cheshire without completing his degree.

In January 2011, the University of Warwick awarded him the degree of Doctor of Letters (honoris causa). He has also been awarded honorary doctorates from the University of Salford (2011) and the University of Huddersfield in (2012).

Career

Garner began working on his first work of fiction, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen (1960), a fantasy tale in which twins Colin and Susan must contend with supernatural forces after discovering that they possess a magical gem. It is set in Alderley Edge in Garner’s native Cheshire. He released a sequel, The Moon of Gomrath (1963), in which the children must again face dark magical threats. In 2012 he issued the final installment of the trilogy, Boneland, which details the adult Colin’s quest to find his sister. The books draw on such mythological motifs as the “sleeping king,” a legendary hero waiting to be awakened in a time of crisis, and the “wild hunt,” a group of ghastly riders condemned to hunt for eternity.

Further novels include Elidor (1965), about four children tasked with protecting magical items, and The Owl Service (1967; television film 1969), which retells a story from the Welsh mythological compendium the Mabinogion. Red Shift (1973) follows the lives of three men living in different centuries, all of whom come into possession of a magical ax. The novel elliptically references the ballad of Tam Lin, a man rescued from the fairies by his paramour. Strandloper (1996) is based on the true story of an Englishman who lived with Australian Aborigines for more than 30 years. Thursbitch (2003) intertwines events taking place in the titular English valley in the 18th and 21st centuries. The Stone Book Quartet - comprising The Stone Book (1976), Granny Reardun (1977), Tom Fobble’s Day (1977), and The Aimer Gate (1978) - is a series of fictionalized episodes from the lives of Garner’s ancestors.

Garner retold legends and folktales in the collections Alan Garner’s Fairy Tales of Gold (1979), The Lad of the Gad (1980), A Bag of Moonshine (1986), Once upon a Time (1993), and Collected Folk Tales (2011). Other works include The Voice That Thunders: Essays and Lectures (1997) and The Well of the Wind (1998), a meandering fairy tale for younger children. Garner also wrote radio, television, and stage plays. The opera libretto Potter Thompson (1975), another riff on the legend of the “sleeping hero,” was commissioned by a children’s choral group.

Garner was created Officer of the British Empire (OBE) in 2001. His archives were housed at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, United States.

Achievements

• Alan Garner is a prominent novelist best known for his children's fantasy novels and his retellings of traditional British folk tales. He received many awards for his works including Hans Christian Andersen Award, Karl Edward Wagner Award, Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, etc.

Works

More photos

• book

  • A Cavalcade of Goblins

    (Forty-two tales, legends, and poems from various countrie...)

  • The Stone Book Quartet

    (A classic work of rural magic realism from one of Britain...)

  • The Voice That Thunders

    (Alan Garner is an exceptional lecturer and essayist. This...)

  • Strandloper
  • The Weirdstone of Brisingamen
  • Conversationally Speaking
  • The Owl Service
  • The Moon of Gomrath
  • Elidor
  • Where Shall We Run To?
  • Collected Folk Tales
  • Thursbitch
  • The Dark Is Rising
  • Red Shift
  • Lifeskills for Adult Children
  • Fairytales of Gold
  • The Lad of the Gad
  • Once Upon A Time
  • The Alan Garner Collection

Views

Quotations: In a 2014 interview conducted with Mike Pitts for British Archaeology magazine, Garner stated that "I don't have anything to do with the literary world. I avoid writers. I don't like them. Most of my close personal friends are professional archaeologists."

"As I turned toward writing, which is partially intellectual in its function, but is primarily intuitive and emotional in its execution, I turned towards that which was numinous and emotional in me, and that was the legend of King Arthur Asleep Under the Hill. It stood for all that I'd had to give up in order to understand what I'd had to give up. And so my first two books, which are very poor on characterization because I was somehow numbed in that area, are very strong on imagery and landscape, because the landscape I had inherited along with the legend."

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• Philip Pullman, the author of the His Dark Materials trilogy remarked that:
  
  "Garner is indisputably the great originator, the most important British writer of fantasy since Tolkien, and in many respects better than Tolkien, because deeper and more truthful... Any country except Britain would have long ago recognised his importance, and celebrated it with postage stamps and statues and street-names. But that's the way with us: our greatest prophets go unnoticed by the politicians and the owners of media empires. I salute him with the most heartfelt respect and admiration."

Connections

With his first wife Anne Cook Alan had three children: Adam, Ellen and Katharine. In 1972 he married for a second time, this time to Griselda Greaves, a teacher and critic with whom he had two children: Joseph and Elizabeth.

Father:

Colin Garner

Mother:

Marjorie Garner

Spouse:

Griselda Greaves

ex-spouse:

Anne Cook

Son:

Adam

Daughter:

Ellen Garner

Daughter:

Katharine Garner

Son:

Joseph Garner

Daughter:

Elizabeth Garner

Friend:

William Collins

References

• Contemporary Authors New Revision: A Bio-Bibliographical Guide to Current Writers in Fiction, General Nonfiction, Poetry, Journalism, Drama, Motion Pictures, Television, and Other Fields: 178