Martin Booth
Martin Booth was an English writer known for his diverse body of work, which includes poetry, nonfiction, children's literature, and literary fiction. Born in Lancashire, England, he moved to Hong Kong at the age of seven due to his father's role in the colonial civil service. This multicultural upbringing greatly influenced Booth's writing style and themes, as he often explored his experiences living abroad in his works. His last book, "Gweilo," published in 2004, serves as a memoir reflecting on his childhood in Hong Kong, highlighting the contrasting perspectives of his parents during that time.
Booth's literary career began with poetry, achieving moderate success through small presses and radio recitations. He also founded a small press called Sceptre, fostering other poets' work. Throughout his career, Booth's fiction and nonfiction frequently addressed themes of cultural dislocation and international politics, particularly focusing on the experiences of British expatriates. He received recognition for his contributions to literature, including a fellowship with the Royal Society of Literature and a Booker Prize nomination for his novel "The Industry of Souls." Booth passed away at the age of fifty-nine, leaving behind a legacy of acclaimed writing that reflects his rich, varied life experiences.
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Subject Terms
Martin Booth
Writer
- Born: September 7, 1944
- Birthplace: Longridge, England
- Died: February 12, 2004
- Place of death: Stoodleigh, Devon, England
Biography
During his childhood, Martin Booth lived in a variety of settings. Throughout his life, he maintained an appreciation for diverse experience. He worked numerous jobs, including clerk, truck driver, and teacher. When he finally established himself as a writer, he proved himself capable and prolific in a variety of forms, including poetry, nonfiction (history and biography), children’s literature and literary fiction. He died relatively young, at the age of fifty-nine, but he left behind an impressive body of work that was acclaimed for its attention to detail, no matter what the genre.
Booth was born in Lancashire, England, but his family moved to Hong Kong when he was seven years old, as his father was posted there with the colonial civil service. Martin Booth made his family’s time in Hong Kong the focus of his last book and only memoir, Gweilo (2004), a volume he began working on at his children’s urging shortly after being diagnosed with brain cancer. In this book, Booth recalls the family’s time in Hong Kong as one in which he was able to grow closer to his mother, who like Booth himself, took an interest in learning as much as she could about the surroundings she found herself in. Mrs. Booth instigated family excursions to fishing villages outside Hong Kong, trips which Booth recalled in great detail fifty years later. His father, however, took a colonialist’s view of life in Hong Kong, and so kept a bureaucratic distance from the people and culture they encountered. The family was posted to Kenya afterward, and again to Hong Kong. Eventually, Booth returned to England, where he trained to be a teacher.
Booth’s first literary endeavors were poems, which were moderately successful, having been published by small presses and recited on radio programs. The worldliness of his upbringing was reflected in his poetry’s eclectic influences that ranged from English and American poets of the 1960’s to translated poems from Eastern Europe. He also started his own small press, Sceptre, which produced handcrafted volumes of work by a variety of poets.
Booth’s fiction and nonfiction alike both drew on his experiences living abroad as a child. Several of his novels are set in Asia, while others deal international politics or with the cultural dislocation of British expatriates in Japan and Russia. His nonfiction work has connections to the places of his youth as well, especially his 1996 volume Opium: A History.
Booth was named a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1970, and his novel The Industry of Souls (1998) was nominated for the Booker prize.