Background
Hensher was born in South London, although he spent the majority of his childhood and adolescence in Sheffield, attending Tapton School.
Hensher was born in South London, although he spent the majority of his childhood and adolescence in Sheffield, attending Tapton School.
He did his undergraduate degree at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, before attending Cambridge, where he was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy for work on 18th century painting and satire.
Early in his career he worked as a clerk in the House of Commons, from which he was fired over the content of an interview he gave to a gay magazine. He has published a number of novels, and is a regular contributor, columnist and book reviewer for newspapers and weeklies such as The Guardian, The Spectator, The Mail on Sunday and The Independent. The Bedroom of the Mister’s Wife (1999) brings together 14 of his stories, including "Dead Languages", which A. South. Byatt selected for her Oxford Book of English Short Stories (1998), making Hensher the youngest author included in the anthology.
He is Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University.
From 2005 to 2012 he taught creative writing at the University of Exeter. Since 2000, Philip Hensher has been listed as one of the 100 most influential LGBT people in Britain, and in 2003 as one of Granta"s twenty Best of Young British Novelists.
In 2013, his novel "Scenes from Early Life" was shortlisted for the Green Carnation Prize, and awarded the Ondaatje Prize. lieutenant is based on his husband"s childhood against the backdrop of the war of independence in Bangladesh He wrote the libretto for Thomas Adès" 1995 opera Powder Her Face.
In 2015 he edited the Penguin Book of the British Short Story.
His early writings have been characterized as having an "ironic, knowing distance from their characters" and "icily precise skewerings of pretension and hypocrisy". His historical novel The Mulberry Empire "echos with the rhythm and language of folk tales" while "play games" with narrative forms.