Philip Hoare

Background

Hoare was born in Southampton and attended Street Mary"s College.

Career

He has also written. He wrote and presented the British Broadcasting Corporation Arena film The Hunt for Moby-Dick, and directed three films for British Broadcasting Corporation’s Whale Night. He is Professor of Creative Writing in the department of English at the University of Southampton and Leverhulme Artist-in-residence at the Marine Institute, Plymouth University, which awarded him an honorary doctorate in 2011.

His latest book, The Sea Inside, was published by Fourth Estate in June 2013. He has been interested by cetaceans since early childhood and between 2011-2012, this self-professed "whale obsession" led him to create the Moby Dick Big Read.

The project, curated by Hoare and artist Angela Cockayne, involved the construction of an online audiobook of all 135 chapters of Herman Melville"s classic "Moby Dick.

Or, the Whale". The readings were delivered by a multitude of celebrities, including Tilda Swinton, Stephen Fry, Sir David Attenborough, John Waters, Simon Callow and David Cameron, and accompanied by images from contemporary artists such as Anish Kapoor, Antony Gormley, George Shaw and Susan Hiller. The readings were uploaded to the Moby Dick Big Read website, with one chapter available for download per day from 16 September 2012.

All downloads are free but donations are invited to "Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society" (WDCS).

Hoare is a contributor to the animal news site,The Dodo. The name Philip Hoare was adopted to avoid confusion with astronomer Patrick Moore. "Imagine having to spend your entire life living with people asking: "You"re not that astronomer, are you?" Or: "Do you play the xylophone?" Another reason was that when I was managing bands I used to review my own bands for the NME and Sounds as Philip Hoare.

Philip was my confirmation name.

Hoare my mother"s maiden name." In 1982-1983, he ran the record label Operation Twilight, a United Kingdom-based subsidiary of the Belgian Les Disques du Crépuscule, which launched the career of the Pale Fountains. In 2009 he exhibited artworks made with Angela Cockagne at Viktor Wynd Fine Art Incorporated in London.

Achievements

• Leviathan or, The Whale (2008), won the 2009 British Broadcasting Corporation Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Sea Inside Paperback - May 12, 2015
  • The Sea Inside by Philip Hoare (2014-02-27)
  • The Sea Inside by Philip Hoare (2015-05-12)
  • Philip Hoare: The Sea Inside (Hardcover); 2014 Edition