Jonathan Coe is an English novelist and writer. His work has an underlying preoccupation with political issues, although this serious engagement is often expressed comically in the form of satire. For example, What a Carve Up! reworks the plot of an old 1960s spoof horror film of the same name. It is set within the "carve up" of the UK's resources which some believed was carried out by Margaret Thatcher's right wing Conservative governments of the 1980s. Coe was born in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire. He was born on 19 August 1961 to Roger and Janet Coe. He studied at King Edward's School,... Birmingham and Trinity College, Cambridge. He taught at the University of Warwick, where he completed an MA and PhD in English Literature. Coe has long been interested in both music and literature. In the mid 1980s he played with a band and tried to get a recording of his music. He published his first novel in 1987. As of 2010, he has published nine novels. They have been well received and three have won literary awards. Coe read an excerpt of The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim to crowds at the Latitude Festival.
more