James Meek

James Meek writes….: Born in Blackheath, London, in 1962, second of four children. Father, the son of Scots who spent working life in India; mother, the daughter of a journalist-novelist-war correspondent and a Hungarian-Jewish immigrant. Family moved to Scotland, after short stop in Nottingham, in 1967. After years in Polmont and Longriggend, where father worked in prison service, in 1969 family moved to Broughty Ferry, Dundee, where he grew up.

Six years at Grove Academy, state school in Broughty Ferry, where with the poet W. N. Herbert and others set up literary magazine, The Strawberry Duck, final school edition of which was seized and destroyed by the school authorities.

Went to Edinburgh University. First short stories published in New Edinburgh Review in early 1980s, first book publication story in Collins Book of Scottish Short Stories, 1984; play, Faculty of Rats, written with Duncan McLean, performed at Edinburgh Fringe.

From university went to City University, London, to do postgraduate journalism course. In 1985 got job as reporter on evening newspaper in Northampton, the Northampton Chronicle & Echo; worked there for three years, during which wrote first novel, McFarlane Boils the Sea, published 1989. Returned to Edinburgh in 1988 to take job as reporter on the Scotsman. During three years there wrote collection of short stories Last Orders, published 1992; helped Duncan McLean set up the Clocktower Press; and covered the 1991 Gulf War. One of first reporters to enter liberated Kuwait City.

In November 1991 left the Scotsman and drove in Volkswagen Polo from Edinburgh to Kiev, Ukraine, to work as a freelance journalist. Reported on the collapse of the Soviet Union for the Guardian and the Scotsman. During three years in Ukraine learned Russian, travelled widely and met his future wife, Yulia. In 1994 moved with Yulia to Moscow to work as reporter in the Guardian bureau there. Worked in Moscow for five years, married Yulia, visited four corners of the former Soviet space, published second novel, Drivetime, and began The People’s Act of Love. Interrupted The People’s Act Of Love to write second collection of short stories, The Museum Of Doubt. Moved to London in 1999 to work at the Guardian in various jobs, including covering the Afghan war and fall of Kabul in 2001 and the invasion of Iraq and its aftermath in 2003-4. Now working on fourth novel. Now living in Hackney, London.