Ross Raisin FRSL (born 1979) is a British
novelist.[1]
Biography
Ross Raisin was born and brought up in
Silsden, West Yorkshire, attending
Bradford Grammar School. He is the author of three novels: A Natural (2017), Waterline (2011) and God’s Own Country (2008). His work has won and been shortlisted for ten literary awards.[citation needed]
He won the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year award in 2009, and in 2013 was named on Granta's once-a-decade Best of Young British Novelists list.[2]
His book for the Read This series, on the practice of fiction writing: Read This if you Want to be a Great Writer was published by
Laurence King Publishing in April 2018 [3] He has written short stories for Granta, Prospect,Esquire, Dazed and Confused, the Sunday Times, BBC Radio Three and Four, and for anthologies such as: Best British Short Stories (Salt, 2013).[4]
He lives in London with his wife and two children.
Read This if you Want to be a Great Writer, 2018 (part of the Read This series on the creative arts, Laurence King)[14]
Raisin's
debut novelGod's Own Country (titled Out Backward in North America) was published in 2008. It was shortlisted for the
Guardian First Book Award and the
John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, and won a
Betty Trask Award.[15] The novel focuses on Sam Marsdyke, a disturbed adolescent living in a harsh rural environment, and follows his journey from isolated oddity to outright insanity. Thomas Meaney in The Washington Post compared the novel favourably to
Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange, and said "Out Backward more convincingly registers the internal logic of unredeemable delinquency".[16] Writing in The Guardian Justine Jordan described the novel as "an absorbing read", which marked Raisin out as "a young writer to watch".[17] In April 2009 the book won Raisin the
Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award.[18] He is currently a writer-in-residence for the charity
First Story.