Street Aubyn grew up in London and France, where his family had a house. His father, Roger, of half-Scottish descent, was a former soldier and a surgeon. His mother, Lorna, was descended from a wealthy American family based in Cincinnati.
Street Aubyn has described an unhappy childhood in which he was repeatedly raped by his father from the ages of five to eight with the complicity of his mother.
He attended Westminster School and in 1979 went on to read English at Keble College, Oxford University by which time he was a heroin addict.
He is the author of eight novels. In 2006, Mother"s Milk was nominated for the Booker prize. Five of Street Aubyn"s novels, Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, Mother"s Milk, and At Last, form The Patrick Melrose Novels, republished in a single volume in 2012.
Although the Melrose books are sometimes portrayed in the media as tales of decadent aristocracy, they are frequently caustic about the futility and triviality of people with inherited wealth, a point made very explicit in At Last, the final book in the Melrose series.
The books have been hailed as a powerful exploration of how emotional health can be carved out of childhood adversity. Mother"s Milk was made into a feature film in 2012.
The screenplay was written by Street Aubyn and director Gerald Fox. lieutenant stars Jack Davenport, Adrian Dunbar, Diana Quick, and Margaret Tyzack in her last performance.
1992 Betty Trask Award winner for Never Mind 1998 Guardian Fiction Prize shortlisted for On the Edge 2006 Manitoba Booker Prize shortlisted for Mother"s Milk 2007 Prix Femina Etranger winner for Mother"s Milk 2007 South Bank Show award on literature winner for Mother"s Milk 2014 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize winner for Lost for Words.
