{{Short description|English author}} {{BLP sources|date=February 2013}} {{Use dmy dates|date=September 2019}} {{Use British English|date=September 2019}} {{infobox person | name = Giles Foden | honorific_suffix = | image = | alt = | caption = | birth_name = Giles William Thomas Foden | birth_date = {{Birth date and age|df=yes|1967|01|11}} | birth_place = [[Warwickshire]], England | death_date = | death_place = | other_names = | education = [[Yarlet Hall]]<br>[[Malvern College]] | alma_mater = [[Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge]]<br>[[St John's College, Cambridge]] | occupation = Writer; Professor of Creative Writing at the [[University of East Anglia]] | known_for = | notable_works = ''[[The Last King of Scotland]]'' (1998) | awards = [[1998 Whitbread Awards|Whitbread First Novel Award]];<br>[[Betty Trask Award]];<br>[[Somerset Maugham Award]];<br>[[Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize]] }} '''Giles Foden''' (born 11 January 1967)<ref name=EBW>George Stade and Karen Karbiener (eds), ''Encyclopaedia of British Writers, 1800 to the Present'', 2nd edn, Infobase Publishing, 2010, p. 176.</ref> is an English author, best known for his novel ''[[The Last King of Scotland]]'' (1998).
==Biography== [[File:Maincollege.jpg|thumb|right|[[Malvern College]]]] Giles William Thomas Foden<ref name=EBW /> was born in [[Warwickshire]] in 1967, the son of Jonathan, an agricultural adviser, and Mary, a farmer. On his grandfather's death, the family sold their farm and in 1972 moved to [[Malawi]] in south-eastern Africa.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://literature.britishcouncil.org/writer/giles-foden|title= Giles Foden - Literature|publisher=[[British Council]]|access-date= 20 August 2017}}</ref> Foden was educated at [[Yarlet School|Yarlet Hall]] and [[Malvern College]] boarding schools, then at [[Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge]],<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/02/meeting-the-british-paul-muldoon-giles-foden|title=For me, Meeting the British blew away the very idea of certainty|first=Giles|last=Foden|newspaper=The Guardian|date=2 September 2014}}</ref> where he read English, and at [[St John's College, Cambridge]].
Foden first worked as a journalist for ''Media Week'' magazine. He later became an assistant editor on ''[[The Times Literary Supplement]]'' and, between 1995 and 2006, was deputy literary editor at ''[[The Guardian]]''. Formerly a Fellow in Creative and Performing Arts at [[Royal Holloway, University of London]], and now Professor of Creative Writing at the [[University of East Anglia]], he continues to contribute to ''The Guardian'' and other periodicals.
Foden's first novel, ''[[The Last King of Scotland]]'' (1998), is set during [[Idi Amin]]'s rule of Uganda in the 1970s. It won the [[1998 Whitbread Awards|Whitbread First Novel Award]], a [[Somerset Maugham Award]], a Betty Trask Award and the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize. The feature film, ''[[The Last King of Scotland (film)|The Last King of Scotland]]'' (2006), starring [[Forest Whitaker]], is based on Foden's novel<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/fodeng/lastking.htm|title= The Last King of Scotland - Giles Foden|access-date= 22 August 2017}}</ref> with considerable differences, and Foden himself makes a brief cameo as a journalist at one of Amin's press conferences. His second novel, ''[[Ladysmith (novel)|Ladysmith]]'' (1999), is set during the [[Second Boer War|Anglo-Boer War]] in 1899 and tells the story of a young woman, Bella Kiernan, who becomes caught up in the [[Siege of Ladysmith]]. The book was inspired by letters written by Foden's great-grandfather, Arthur Foden, a British soldier in the [[Imperial Yeomanry]] in South Africa during the conflict.
Giles Foden edited ''The Guardian Century'' (1999), a collection of the best reportage and feature-writing published in the newspaper during the twentieth century, and he contributed a short story to ''The Weekenders: Travels in the Heart of Africa'', a collection of short fiction set in Africa by various contemporary writers. ''[[Zanzibar (novel)|Zanzibar]]'' (2002), is set in east Africa and explores the events surrounding the bombings of American embassies in 1998. ''[[Mimi and Toutou Go Forth: The Bizarre Battle for Lake Tanganyika]]'', was published in 2004.
In 2009, he donated the short story "(One Last) Throw of the Dice" to Oxfam's ''[[Ox-Tales]]'' project, four collections of UK stories written by 38 authors. Foden's story was published in the ''Water'' collection.<ref>[http://www.oxfam.org.uk/shop/content/books/books_oxtales.html Oxfam: Ox-Tales] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090520182004/http://www.oxfam.org.uk/shop/content/books/books_oxtales.html |date=20 May 2009 }}</ref> His latest book, ''Turbulence'', is a novel about the military interest in meteorology in the Second World War.<ref>{{cite web |author1=Mark Lawson |author-link1=Mark Lawson |title=Atmospheric pressures |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jun/06/turbulence-giles-foden |work=The Guardian |access-date=21 May 2020 |date=6 June 2009}}</ref>
==Selected bibliography== *1998: ''[[The Last King of Scotland]]'' *1999: ''[[Ladysmith (novel)|Ladysmith]]'' *2002: ''[[Zanzibar (novel)|Zanzibar]]'' *2004: ''[[Mimi and Toutou Go Forth: The Bizarre Battle for Lake Tanganyika]]'' *2009: ''[[Turbulence (Giles Foden novel)|Turbulence]]''
==Awards and prizes== *1998: [[James Tait Black Memorial Prize]] (for fiction) (shortlist) for ''[[The Last King of Scotland]]'' *1998: [[1998 Whitbread Awards|Whitbread First Novel Award]] for ''The Last King of Scotland'' *1999: [[Betty Trask Award]] for ''The Last King of Scotland'' *1999: [[Somerset Maugham Award]] for ''The Last King of Scotland'' *1999: [[Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize]] for ''The Last King of Scotland''
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== *[http://www.randomhouse.com/boldtype/1298/foden/ An Interview with Giles Foden and an excerpt from ''The Last King of Scotland'' on RandomHouse boldtype] *{{British council|id=giles-foden|name=Giles Foden}} *[https://www.theguardian.com/profile/gilesfoden Giles Foden] at [[The Guardian]]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Foden, Giles}} [[Category:1967 births]] [[Category:Living people]] [[Category:People educated at Malvern College]] [[Category:Alumni of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge]] [[Category:Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge]] [[Category:Academics of the University of East Anglia]] [[Category:English male journalists]] [[Category:21st-century English novelists]] [[Category:Writers from Warwickshire]] [[Category:British emigrants to Malawi]] [[Category:English male novelists]] [[Category:21st-century English male writers]]