John Murray

Born in 1950 in Cumberland, England, John Murray is an English writer and novelist best known for satirical fiction. He studied Sanskrit at University College, Oxford, and in 1984 he founded the fiction magazine Panurge, which he edited with fellow author David Almond until 1996.

His first novel, Samarkand, was published in 1985, and he won the Dylan Thomas Award in 1988 for stories from his collection Pleasure. Later work, including John Dory and Jazz Etc., helped build his reputation as a comic and hard-to-classify novelist whose writing often blends exuberant humor with literary experimentation.

Murray has also been praised for the distinctiveness of his voice, with the Royal Literary Fund describing a long career that includes seven novels and one story collection. While his books can be inventive and unusual, they are often rooted in character, place, and an affection for the absurd.