Michael Dibdin
Michael Dibdin was an English author born on March 21, 1947, in Wolverhampton, England, and he spent part of his childhood in Lisburn, Northern Ireland. His academic journey began at Sussex University, where he studied English and literature, later earning a master's degree from the University of Alberta in Canada. Dibdin's early career included various jobs and an attempt at running a painting business, which ultimately led him to write. He published his first novel, *The Last Sherlock Holmes Story*, in 1978 and gained recognition in the crime fiction genre with his creation of the detective Aurelio Zen. The Zen series, starting with *Ratking* in 1988, garnered multiple awards, including the Crime Writers’ Association Golden Dagger Award. Throughout his career, Dibdin produced a variety of crime novels, and his works have been translated into numerous languages. His personal life included two marriages and two daughters, with his final years spent collaborating with fellow author Kathrine Beck. Dibdin's contribution to crime literature continues to be appreciated globally.
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Michael Dibdin
Writer
- Born: March 21, 1947
- Birthplace: Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, England
- Died: March 30, 2007
- Place of death: Seattle, Washington
Biography
Michael Dibdin was born March 21, 1947, in Wolverhampton, England, and grew up in Lisburn, Northern Ireland. His father was a physics teacher with wanderlust, who moved the family a number of times before settling in Ulster when Michael was seven years old. In 1965, Dibdin, educated as a youngster at schools in Scotland and Ireland, enrolled at Sussex University to study English and literature, and earned an A.B. He later received an M.A. from the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, and pursued a Ph.D. course for a year before dropping out. In Canada, he married for the first time, and he and his wife had a daughter. He worked at a succession of jobs before establishing a painting and decorating business, but it eventually failed. He returned to England and began writing while his wife worked as a waitress.
Dibdin wrote three unpublished novels before turning in desperation to familiar ground: the Sherlock Holmes stories he had been given as a teenager. In 1978, he published his first novel, The Last Sherlock Holmes Story, a well-received pastiche revolving around the pursuit of Jack the Ripper. Shortly afterward, his marriage broke up. Dibdin went to the University of Perugia, Italy, to teach English, remaining for four years and soaking up culture. He returned to England to live in the Oxford suburbs, remarried, and sired a second daughter. His second novel, A Rich Full Death, another pastiche featuring the married poets Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, was released in 1986, but caused little fanfare.
His career stalled, Dibdin used what he had learned in Italy to create a Venetian detective named Aurelio Zen, who first appeared in Ratking (1988). Finally, he had a winner: the novel won the Crime Writer’s Association Golden Dagger Award. Vendetta (1990), the second in the series, also won a Crime Writers’ Association award. The third novel in the series, Cabal (1992), won the French Grand Prix du Roman Policier. Between the books in the Zen series, which appear at the rate of about one every two years, Dibdin has produced several other crime novels ranging from stories of obsession and greed to a spoof of a traditional whodunit. He also edited The Picador Book of Crime Writing (1993).
In 1994, his second marriage broke up. Shortly thereafter, at a writer’s conference in Barcelona, he met fellow mystery writer and single mother of three children Kathrine Beck (who writes under the pen name K. K. Beck). They subsequently married. Dibdin’s novels have been translated into many languages.