PHILIP GROSS is a writer for people – of all ages – who like the challenge of big ideas, real emotions, powerful language and imagination in full flight.
The son of a wartime refugee from Estonia and a Cornish schoolmaster’s daughter, his novels and poetry are always smuggling messages across borders - between childhood and adult life, between fantasy and reality, between genres: science fiction, haiku, schools opera libretti, stage and radio plays. His poetry collection The Wasting Game (shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize) dealt with teenage anorexia and has frequently been used in schools.
At various times he has been a junior chess champion, a rock climber, a Buddhist, a lead guitarist in a rock band, a student revolutionary, a Quaker and a university professor. He has two grown-up children, and lives in Bristol with his wife Zélie, and has visited schools for more than twenty years, leading writing workshops and reading his work.
Earlier this year, Philip was announced as the winner of the prestigious TS Eliot prize for his collection The Water Table. In June 2010 he was awarded the Wales Book of the Year Award for I Spy Pinhole Eye.
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