Ian Kenneth Patterson (born 31 August 1948) is a British poet, translator and academic. He is a Life Fellow of Queens' College, Cambridge, having retired in 2018 from his post as Senior Lecturer in English Literature, Director of Studies in English and Fellow Librarian.[1]
Ian Patterson | |
|---|---|
| Born | 31 August 1948 |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation(s) | Poet, translator, academic |
| Spouses | |
Education and career
editIan Patterson was educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he graduated with a BA degree in English in 1969. He returned to academia in the 1990s to write a PhD, and in 1995 was awarded a Junior Research Fellowship at King's College, Cambridge. In 1999 he moved to Queens', where he was to teach English as a fellow of the college for the next 20 years.[2]
Work
editIn 2017 Ian Patterson won the Forward Prize for best single poem for "The Plenty of Nothing", an elegy to his wife, Jenny Diski.[3]
Patterson has written a non-fiction book about the bombing of Guernica and the Spanish Civil War.[4] He is also a translator: works include the final volume of In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust[5] and works by Charles Fourier and Alain Touraine. He is a regular contributor to the London Review of Books, writing on subjects as diverse as Jilly Cooper,[6] libraries and Ann Quin.[7]
Personal life
editPatterson was married to the writer Jenny Diski until her death in 2016. He appears as The Poet in her writing.[8] In 2017, he married the writer Olivia Laing.[9] He is the editor of Nemo's Almanac, according to The Guardian "the world's hardest book quiz". Previous editors include Alan Hollinghurst.[10]
Awards and honours
edit- 2017 Forward Prize, Best Single Poem, "The Plenty of Nothing".[11]
Bibliography
editNon-fiction
edit- Nemo's Almanac (Profile Books, 2017)
- Guernica and Total War (Profile Books, 2007)
- edited, with Laura Ashe, War and Literature (Boydell & Brewer, 2014)
Poetry
edit- Thing of Reason (Black Suede Boot Press, 1974)
- Endless Demands (Holophrase, 1983)
- No Dice (Poetical Histories, 1988)
- Roughly Speaking (Cambridge, 1990)
- Tense Fodder (Equipage, 1993)
- Much More Pronounced (Equipage, 1999)
- Time to Get Here: Selected Poems 1969–2002 (Salt, 2003)
- The Glass Bell (Barque Press, 2009)
- Time Dust (Equipage, 2015)
- Still Life (Oystercatcher, 2015)
- Bound To Be (Equipage, 2017)
- Shell Vestige Disputed (Broken Sleep Books, 2023)
- Collected Poems 1975-2023 (Broken Sleep Books, 2024)
Translation
edit- Alain Touraine et al., The Workers' Movement (Cambridge University Press, 1987)
- Charles Fourier, The Theory of the Four Movements (Cambridge University Press, 1996)
- Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time, Vol. 6: Finding Time Again (Penguin, 2003)
References
edit- ^ Dr Ian Patterson, Queens' College, Cambridge
- ^ Dr Ian Patterson, Cambridge University Faculty of English. Accessed 2 July 2020.
- ^ Flood, Alison, "Husband's Elegy for Jenny Diski wins Forward Prize Best Single Poem", The Guardian, 21 September 2017
- ^ Bragg, Melvyn, "Picasso's Guernica", In Our Time, 2 November 2017
- ^ Wood, Michael, "The Thing", London Review of Books, 6 January 2015
- ^ Vincent, Alice, "Jilly Cooper compared to Charles Dickens and Anthony Trollope by Cambridge academic", The Daily Telegraph, 12 May 2017
- ^ Ian Patterson, London Review of Books
- ^ Flood, Alison, "Author Jenny Diski , diagnosed with inoperable cancer, dies aged 68", The Guardian, 28 April 2016.
- ^ Laing, Olivia, "The acclaimed author of The Lonely City on loneliness, marrying the poet Ian Patterson and the challenges of intimacy", The Sunday Times, 24 June 2018.
- ^ Patterson, Ian (9 November 2017). "The world's hardest books quiz: 'no Googling allowed!'" – via www.theguardian.com.
- ^ "Congratulations to the Forward Prize winners". The Poetry Society. 22 September 2017. Archived from the original on 21 December 2023. Retrieved 21 December 2023.