Michael Morpurgo

Sir
Michael Morpurgo
OBE FRSL FKC DL
Morpurgo at a Paris book fair in March 2009
Born Michael Andrew Bridge
(1943-10-05) 5 October 1943
St Albans, Hertfordshire, England
Occupation Author
Nationality British
Alma mater King's College London
Notable works War Horse, Why the Whales Came, Private Peaceful
Spouse Clare Morpurgo
Children 3
Website
www.michaelmorpurgo.com

Sir Michael Andrew Bridge Morpurgo, OBE, FRSL, FKC, DL (born Michael Andrew Bridge; 5 October 1943)[1] is an English book author, poet, playwright, and librettist who is known best for children's novels such as War Horse (1982). His work is noted for its "magical storytelling",[2] for recurring themes such as the triumph of an outsider or survival, for characters' relationships with nature, and for vivid settings such as the Cornish coast or World War I. Morpurgo became the third Children's Laureate, from 2003 to 2005.[3]

Early life

Morpurgo was born in 1943 as Michael Andrew Bridge; his biological father was actor Tony Van Bridge.[4] His mother, Kippe Cammaerts (otherwise Catherine Noel Kippe, daughter of Émile Cammaerts), who had been an actress, met, and later in 1963 married Jack Morpurgo (subsequently professor of American Literature at the University of Leeds from 1969-82[5]) while Van Bridge was away during World War II.

Morpurgo did not learn who his biological father was until he was 19 years old,[6] while watching the 1962 film version of Great Expectations, with his mother, in which Tony Van Bridge appeared.

Morpurgo attended schools in central London, Devon, Sussex and Kent; his unhappy experiences at boarding school would inform his novel The Butterfly Lion. He attended the independent prep school Mount House in Devon until he was 13. He then went to the King's School, an independent school in Canterbury, prior to studying at King's College London and graduating with a third class degree[7] before entering the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.[6] He then joined the teaching profession[6] with a job in a primary school in Kent. He also, from 1968, briefly taught at St. Faith's School in Cambridge.[8]

Life and career

From teaching to writing

Morpurgo's writing career was inspired by Ted Hughes' Poetry in the Making, Paul Gallico's The Snow Goose and Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea.[2]

Hughes and another poet, Seán Rafferty, were influential in his career, with Hughes becoming a friend, mentor and neighbour. It was not until he was teaching in Kent that Morpurgo discovered his vocation in life, of which he later said "I could see there was magic in it for them, and realized there was magic in it for me."

Farms for city children

Morpurgo married Clare, eldest daughter of Sir Allen Lane, the founder of Penguin Books.[9] In 1976 Michael and Clare established the charity Farms for City Children,[10] with the primary aim of providing children from inner city areas with experience of the countryside.[11] The programme involves the children spending a week at a countryside farm, during which they take part in purposeful farmyard work.[12]

About 85,000 children have taken part in the scheme since it was set up, and the charity now has three farms in Devon, Gloucestershire and Wales.

Children's Laureate

Morpurgo and Hughes, then Poet Laureate, originated the idea of Children's Laureate role.[13] Morpurgo became the third person to fill the two-year position, from 2003 to 2005.[3][14]

Adaptations

Gentle Giant was presented as an opera by composer Stephen McNeff and librettist Mike Kenny at the Royal Opera House in 2006. Film versions have been made of Friend or Foe (1981), Private Peaceful (2012) and Why the Whales Came (1989), the latter also being adapted to a stage play. My Friend Walter (1988) 'Purple Penguins' (2000) and Out of the Ashes (2001) have been adapted for television.

War Horse has been adapted as a radio broadcast and as a stage play, premiering at the National Theatre, London, on 17 October 2007, with the horses played by life-sized horse puppets horses designed and built by the Handspring Puppet Company. The show transferred to the West End on 28 March 2009,[15] and on 15 March 2011, the show premiered on Broadway at the Vivian Beaumont Theater.[16] War Horse was also adapted as a 2011 British film directed by Steven Spielberg.

Composer Stephen Barlow created a musical adaptation of Rainbow Bear, narrated by his wife Joanna Lumley. This was subsequently presented as a ballet by the National Youth Ballet of Great Britain in August 2010.

Political views

In a January 2014 article, Morpurgo stated "as we begin to mark the centenary of the first world war, we should honour those who died, most certainly, and gratefully too, but we should never glorify... Come each November over the next four years, let the red poppy and the white poppy be worn together to honour those who died, to keep our faith with them, to make of this world a place where freedom and peace can reign together."[17]

In August 2014, Morpurgo was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian opposing Scottish independence in the run-up to September's referendum on that issue.[18]

Prior to the 2015 general election, he was one of several celebrities who endorsed the parliamentary candidacy of the Green Party's Caroline Lucas.[19]

In 2016, he condemned government plans to extend grammar schools as divisive and “quite deeply stupid”.[20]

In the run up to the United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, 2016, Morpurgo expressed his support for the European Union in an interview with the BBC.,[21] and reinforced this with a ten minute BBC Radio 4 'Point of View' on Sunday August 5, 2018.

Honours and appointments

Morpurgo was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 1999 Birthday Honours for services to young people, was advanced to Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2006 Birthday Honours for services to literature and was made a Knight Bachelor in the 2018 New Year Honours for services to literature and charity.[22][23][24]

Morpurgo was awarded an honorary doctorate at Bishop Grosseteste University on 17 July 2013.[25]

Morpurgo was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant for Devon on 10 April 2015.[26]

Reception and impact

Reading Matters website calls Morpurgo's 1999 Kensuke's Kingdom "A quietly told story, but plenty of drama and emotion."[27] The Guardian describes Private Peaceful, his 2003 novel for older children, as a "humanising and humane work".[28]

Literary awards and prizes

Shortlisted
Awarded

Selected works

In 2009 Morpurgo donated the short story "Look At Me, I Need a Smile" to Oxfam's Ox-Tales project, four collections of UK stories written by 38 authors. Morpurgo's story was published in the "Water" collection.[31]

In a statistical overview derived from writings by and about Morpurgo, OCLC/WorldCat encompasses roughly 300+ works in 1,000+ publications in 25 languages and 55,000+ library holdings.[32]

  • It Never Rained: Five Stories (1974)
  • Living Poets (compiler with Clifford Simmons) (1974)
  • Long Way from Home (1975)
  • Thatcher Jones (1975)
  • The Story-Teller (compiler with Graham Barrett) (1976)
  • Friend or Foe (1977)
  • Do All You Dare (1978)
  • What Shall We Do with It? (1978)
  • All Around the Year (with Ted Hughes) (1979)
  • Love at First Sight (1979)
  • That's How (1979)
  • The Day I Took the Bull By the Horn (1979)
  • The Ghost-Fish (1979)
  • The Marble Crusher and Other Stories (1980)
  • The Nine Lives of Montezuma (1980)
  • Miss Wirtle's Revenge (1981)
  • The White Horse of Zennor: And Other Stories from below the Eagle's Nest (1982)
  • War Horse (1982)
  • Little Foxes (1984)
  • Why the Whales Came (1985)
  • Words of Songs (libretto, music by Phyllis Tate) (1985)
  • Tom's Sausage Lion (1986)
  • Conker (1987)
  • Jo-Jo, the Melon Donkey (1987)
  • King of the Cloud Forests (1988)
  • Mossop's Last Chance (with Shoo Rayner) (1988)
  • My Friend Walter (1988)
  • Albertine, Goose Queen (with Shoo Rayner) (1989)
  • Twist of Gold (1989)
  • Mr. Nobody's Eyes (1989)
  • Jigger's Day Off (with Shoo Rayner) (1990)
  • Waiting for Anya (1990)
  • And Pigs Might Fly! (with Shoo Rayner) (1991)
  • Colly's Barn (1991)
  • The Sandman and the Turtles (1991)
  • Martians at Mudpuddle Farm (with Shoo Rayner) (1992)
  • The King in the Forest (1993)
  • The War of Jenkins' Ear (1993)
  • Arthur, High King of Britain (1994)
  • Snakes and Ladders (1994)
  • The Dancing Bear (1994)
  • Blodin the Beast (1995)
  • Mum's the Word (with Shoo Rayner) (1995)
  • Stories from Mudpuddle Farm (with Shoo Rayner) (1995)
  • The Wreck of the Zanzibar (1995)
  • Robin of Sherwood (1996)
  • Sam's Duck (1996)
  • The Butterfly Lion (1996)
  • The Ghost of Grania O'Malley (1996)
  • Farm Boy (1997)
  • Cockadoodle-doo, Mr Sultana! (1998)
  • Escape from Shangri-La (1998)
  • Joan of Arc (1998)
  • Red Eyes at Night (1998)
  • Wartman (1998)
  • Kensuke's Kingdom (1999)
  • The Rainbow Bear (1999)
  • Wombat Goes Walkabout (1999)
  • Billy the Kid (2000)
  • Black Queen (2000)
  • Dear Olly (2000)
  • From Hereabout Hill (2000)
  • The Silver Swan (2000)
  • Who's a Big Bully Then? (2000)
  • More Muck and Magic (2001)
  • Out of the Ashes (2001)
  • Toro! Toro! (2001)
  • Cool! (2002)
  • Mr. Skip (2002)
  • The Last Wolf (2002)
  • The Sleeping Sword (2002)
  • Gentle Giant (2003)
  • Private Peaceful (2003)
  • Dolphin Boy (2004)
  • Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (2004)[33]
  • The Orchard Book of Aesop's Fables (2004), illustrated by Emma Chichester Clark[34]
  • I Believe in Unicorns (2005)
  • The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips (2005)
  • War: Stories of Conflict (compiler) (2005)[35]
  • Albatross (2006)
  • It's a Dog's Life (2006)
  • Alone on a Wide, Wide Sea (2006)
  • Beowulf (2006), illustrated by Michael Foreman
  • Born to Run (2007)
  • The Mozart Question (2007)
  • Hansel and Gretel (2008)
  • This Morning I Met a Whale (2008)
  • Kaspar: Prince of Cats (2008)
  • The Voices of Children (2008) (play)
  • The Birthday Book (editor, with Quentin Blake) (2008)
  • Running Wild (2009)[36]
  • The Kites Are Flying! (2009)[37]
  • An Elephant in the Garden (2010)
  • Not Bad for a Bad Lad (2010)[38]
  • Shadow (2010)[39]
  • Little Manfred (2011)[40]
  • The Pied Piper of Hamelin (2011)[41]
  • Sparrow: The True Story of Joan of Arc (2012)[42]
  • Outlaw: The Story of Robin Hood (2012)[43]
  • Homecoming (2012)[44]
  • Where My Wellies Take Me (with Clare Morpurgo) (2012)[45]
  • A Medal For Leroy (2012)[46]
  • Beauty And The Beast (2013)[46]
  • Pinocchio By Pinocchio (2013)[46]
  • The Goose is Getting Fat (2013)[47]
  • All I Said Was (2014)[48]
  • Half a Man (2014)[49]
  • Listen to the Moon (2014)[50]
  • Mini Kid (2014)[51]
  • Such Stuff: A Story-Maker's Inspiration (2016)[52]
  • The Fox and the Ghost King (The Timeless Tale Of An Impossible Dream) (2016)[53]
  • An Eagle in the Snow (2016)[54]
  • Flamingo Boy (2018)[55]
  • In The Mouth of the Wolf (2018)[56]

Radio and television broadcasts

Biographies

  • Carey, Joanna (1999). Interview with Michael Morpurgo. ISBN 978-0-7497-3866-2
  • Fergusson, Maggie (2012). Michael Morpurgo: War Child to War Horse. ISBN 9780007387267
  • Fox, Geoff (2004). Dear Mr Morpingo: Inside the World of Michael Morpurgo. ISBN 978-1-84046-607-2
  • McCarthy, Shaun (2005). Michael Morpurgo. ISBN 978-0-431-17995-7

Further reading

  • Morpurgo, Michael et al. La Revue Des Livres Pour Enfants Number 250, December 2009: "Michael Morpurgo" pp 79–124. (in French)
  • Franks, Alan (22 September 2007). "Courses for horses". The Times. Retrieved 23 September 2007.

References

  1. ↑ Internet Movie Database
  2. 1 2 "Michael Morpurgo," The Guardian (US). 22 July 2008, retrieved 17 April 2011.
  3. 1 2 "Michael Morpurgo". Children's Laureate (childrenslaureate.org.uk). Booktrust. Retrieved 28 September 2013.
  4. ↑ "The author Michael Morpurgo; Jean Webb". Michaelmorpurgo.org. 23 May 2006. Retrieved 6 November 2012.
  5. ↑ The Daily Telegraph, Obituary, Published 16 October 2000
  6. 1 2 3 "How a horse changed my life". Www.saga.co.uk. Retrieved 18 May 2013.
  7. ↑ "Richard Dimbleby Lecture", BBC One. 15 February 2011, retrieved 17 April 2011.
  8. ↑ St Faith's Headmaster letter of recommendation
  9. ↑ "Penguin, Puffin and the Paperback Revolution". BBC Four. 2 September 2010; retrieved 17 April 2011
  10. ↑ Charity Commission. Farms for City Children, registered charity no. 325120.
  11. ↑ AdventureBox Books Interview on Farms for Children on YouTube
  12. ↑ Farms for City Children webpage, farms4citychildren.co.uk; accessed 14 October 2015.
  13. ↑ UK Children's Laureate, about the award
  14. ↑ Lyall, Sarah. "Undaunted Author of ‘War Horse’ Reflects on Unlikely Hit". The New York Times. 11 April 2011; retrieved 17 April 2011.
  15. ↑ "'War Horse' Opens In The West End 3/28/09" broadwayworld.com, 8 December 2008
  16. ↑ Hetrick, Adam (20 December 2010). "Seth Numrich to Lead 'War Horse' on Broadway; 35-Member Cast Announced". Playbill. Archived from the original on 23 February 2011. Retrieved 27 February 2011.
  17. ↑ First world war centenary is a year to honour the dead but not to glorify The Guardian, 1 January 2014. Retrieved 17 January 2015.
  18. ↑ "Celebrities' open letter to Scotland – full text and list of signatories | Politics". theguardian.com. 2014-08-07. Retrieved 2014-08-26.
  19. ↑ Elgot, Jessica (24 April 2015). "Celebrities sign statement of support for Caroline Lucas – but not the Greens". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 22 July 2015.
  20. ↑ "Grammar school plans are divisive and stupid, says Michael Morpurgo". Retrieved 16 September 2016.
  21. ↑ "Michael Morpurgo: 'History tells me what I need to know about Europe'". BBC News. Retrieved 2017-08-28.
  22. ↑ "No. 55513". The London Gazette (Supplement). 12 June 1999. p. 20.
  23. ↑ "No. 58014". The London Gazette (Supplement). 17 June 2016. p. 12.
  24. ↑ "No. 62150". The London Gazette (Supplement). 30 December 2017. p. N2.
  25. ↑
  26. ↑ "No. 61201". The London Gazette. 16 April 2015. p. 7110.
  27. ↑ "Kensuke's Kingdom by Michael Morpurgo: book review". Retrieved 28 February 2013.
  28. ↑ Samuels, Diane (Oct 18, 2003). "The lost generation". The Guardian. Retrieved 23 April 2017.
  29. 1 2 3 4 "Michael Morpurgo wins Children's Book Award for fourth time". BBC News. 11 June 2017. Retrieved 11 June 2017.
  30. ↑ California Young Reader Medal: 2008 Young Adult winner
  31. ↑ "Ox- Tales" Archived 18 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine., oxfam.org.uk; retrieved 17 April 2011.
  32. ↑ WorldCat Identities Archived 30 December 2010 at the Wayback Machine.:
  33. ↑ London: Walker Books. ISBN 978-0-7445-8646-6
  34. ↑ London: Orchard Books. ISBN 978-1-84362-271-0
  35. ↑ War: Stories of Conflict (2005). HarperCollins. ISBN 978-1-4050-4744-9
  36. ↑ Newberry, Linda. "Running Wild by Michael Morpurgo," The Guardian (UK). 7 November 2009, 17 April 2011.
  37. ↑ "The Kites Are Flying!" Archived 7 August 2009 at the Wayback Machine. Walker Books, retrieved 17 April 2011.
  38. ↑ Michael Morpurgo (May 2010). Not Bad for a Bad Lad. Templar Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84877-308-0. Retrieved 6 April 2011.
  39. ↑ Michael Morpurgo (1 October 2010). Shadow. HarperCollins Publishers Limited. ISBN 978-0-00-733960-0. Retrieved 6 April 2011.
  40. ↑ HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-00-733966-2
  41. ↑ Walker Books. ISBN 978-1-4063-1511-0
  42. ↑ London: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-00-746595-8
  43. ↑ London: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-00-746592-7
  44. ↑ London: Walker Books. ISBN 978-1-4063-3202-5
  45. ↑ London: Templar Publishing. ISBN 9781848775442
  46. 1 2 3 London: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-00-748751-6
  47. ↑ London: Egmont. ISBN 978-1-4052-6896-7
  48. ↑ Edinburgh: Barrington Stoke. ISBN 978-1-78112-348-5
  49. ↑ London: Walker Books. ISBN 978-1-4063-5133-0
  50. ↑ London: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-00-733963-1
  51. ↑ Edinburgh: Barrington Stoke. ISBN 978-1-78112-352-2
  52. ↑ London: Walker Books. ISBN 978-1-4063-6457-6
  53. ↑ London: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-00-796026-2
  54. ↑ "An Eagle in the Snow by Michael Morpurgo - Paperback | HarperCollins". HarperCollins UK. Retrieved 11 June 2017.
  55. ↑ London: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-00-813463-1
  56. ↑ London: Egmont. ISBN 978-1-4052-8526-1
  57. ↑ BBC/OU Open2.net – The Invention of Childhood – Meet the presenter. Open2.net (21 August 2006). Retrieved 6 April 2011.
  58. ↑ "Former Children's Laureate Michael Morpurgo OBE calls for recognition of children's rights in BBC One's Richard Dimbleby Lecture". Press Office. BBC. Retrieved 15 February 2011.
Cultural offices
Preceded by
Anne Fine		 Children's Laureate of the United Kingdom
2003–2005		 Succeeded by
Jacqueline Wilson

((Born in 1943))

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.