# Dominic Cooper (author)

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{{short description|British novelist, poet and watchmaker|bot=PearBOT 5}}
{{BLP sources|date=December 2010}}
'''Dominic Cooper''' (born 1944) is a British novelist, poet and watchmaker. He won the [Somerset Maugham Award](/source/Somerset_Maugham_Award) for his novel ''The Dead of Winter'' (1975).

== Background & career ==
Born near [Winchester](/source/Winchester), he is the son of musicologist [Martin Cooper](/source/Martin_Cooper_(musicologist)) and artist Mary Cooper. His sister [Dame Imogen Cooper](/source/Imogen_Cooper), DBE (born 1949) is an English pianist.

After university, he worked in London for the [Decca Record Company](/source/Decca_Record_Company) and for the publishers, Fabbri & Partners. In 1970, he went to live in [Iceland](/source/Iceland), began to concentrate on writing, and taught English in a language school in [Reykjavík](/source/Reykjav%C3%ADk) to earn a living.

In 1972, he moved to Sweden and then to the [Isle of Mull](/source/Isle_of_Mull) in Argyll, Scotland, where he drew inspiration from the landscape and people to write his first novel, ''The Dead of Winter'', published in 1975.<ref>Newspaper reviews include: C J Driver in ''The Guardian'' 17.04.1975, Jeremy Brooks in ''The Financial Times'' 18.04.1975, ''New Statesman'' 18.04.1975 and James Allan Ford in'' The Scotsman'' 19.04.1975</ref> This won him the Somerset Maugham Award in 1976.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.societyofauthors.org/somerset-maugham-past-winners |title=Somerset Maugham award winners |access-date=2010-12-31 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160626045958/http://www.societyofauthors.org/somerset-maugham-past-winners |archive-date=2016-06-26 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Little of his poetry has been published, but commenting on the poetic quality of his fiction, he has said: ″By nature I feel myself to be first and foremost a poet ... but poetry for me has always been an essentially private affair and I have never felt any great need for it to be published.″<ref>See interview with Yves Loisel of Le Télégramme published 31.03.2007 {{cite web|url=http://prixdeslecteurs.blogs.letelegramme.com/dominic_cooper |title=Dominic_cooper : Prix des lecteurs du Télégramme |accessdate=2011-01-13 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110713202017/http://prixdeslecteurs.blogs.letelegramme.com/dominic_cooper |archivedate=2011-07-13 }}.</ref>

He has described writing his fourth book, ''The Horn Fellow'', set in Northern Europe around 500 BC,<ref>Skinner, Alison. ''Prehistory - the literary dimension'', describes the book in section on modern writers: [http://www.indigogroup.co.uk/edge/Literary.htm].</ref> as “perhaps the greatest experience of my life” and its publication as being met “with a mixture of incomprehension and vague ridicule”.<ref>from archived, unabridged interview supporting article of 31.03.2007 {{cite web|url=http://prixdeslecteurs.blogs.letelegramme.com/dominic_cooper |title=Dominic_cooper : Prix des lecteurs du Télégramme |accessdate=2011-01-13 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110713202017/http://prixdeslecteurs.blogs.letelegramme.com/dominic_cooper |archivedate=2011-07-13 }}.</ref> He has written little during the intervening years.

In 1973 he undertook training in [horology](/source/horology) in [Edinburgh](/source/Edinburgh) and since then he has worked restoring clocks and watches. He returned to the [West Highlands](/source/West_Highlands) in 1985 and soon afterwards built himself a house on a remote part of the North Argyll coast where he now lives.

== Works ==
::''The Dead of Winter''
:::::::Chatto & Windus 1975
:::::::St Martin’s Press, NY 1975
:::::::Faber & Faber 1985
:::::::Thirsty Press 2010
:::::::Italian edition, Einaudi 1989	
:::::::Spanish edition, Mario Muchnik 2003
:::::::French edition, Métailié 2006
:::::::''Somerset Maugham Award'' 1976

::''Sunrise''
:::::::Chatto & Windus 1977
:::::::Faber & Faber 1985

::''Men at Axlir''
:::::::Chatto & Windus 1978
:::::::St Martin’s Press, NY 1978
:::::::Collins Harvill 1988
:::::::Icelandic edition, Örn og Örlygur 1980

::''The Horn Fellow''
:::::::Faber & Faber 1987

::''Jack Fletcher''	
:::::::Encounter 1978

::''Judgements of Value'' (editor)
:::::::OUP 1988

::''The Open Places'' (essay)
:::::::self-published 1989

also short stories, poems, essays and the script for ''Jack Fletcher'', BBC TV 1979.

== References ==
<references />

==External links==
*[https://dominicxcooper.com Personal website]
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cooper, Dominic}}
Category:Scottish novelists
Category:Scottish poets
Category:Living people
Category:1944 births

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