Andrew Crumey

Andrew Crumey (pronounced "Croomy") has a PhD in theoretical physics and is former literary editor of Scotland on Sunday. His novels combine history, philosophy, science and humour, and have been praised and translated worldwide. He won the £60,000 Northern Rock Foundation Writers Award, the UK's largest literary prize, for his most recent novel Sputnik Caledonia. It was also shortlisted for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and Scottish Book of the Year, and longlisted for the Arthur C Clarke Award. His 1994 debut novel, Music, in a Foreign Language, won the Saltire First Book Award and was longlisted for the Guardian Fiction Prize. Pfitz was a New York Times Notable Book, and D'Alembert's Principle was called in for the Booker Prize. Mr Mee was longlisted for both the Booker Prize and IMPAC Award and won a Scottish Arts Council book award. Mobius Dick was a finalist for the Commonwealth Writers Prize and was chosen by Waterstones for its "alternative Booker" shortlist. Other prizes include an Arts Council Writer's Award and Northern Arts Writer's Award. Born in Scotland in 1961, he grew up in Kirkintilloch and graduated with first class honours from St Andrews University. He moved to London in 1983 to do a PhD on dynamical systems and infinite dimensional algebras at Imperial College. Between 1986 and 1989 he was director of West London Nightline and care worker with Westminster Mencap, then returned to research, doing post-doctoral work on nonlinear systems at Imperial College and Leeds University. In 1992 he moved to Newcastle upon Tyne (where he still lives with his wife and two children) and worked as a schoolteacher for four years. He became a regular book reviewer for Scotland on Sunday in 1996 and was literary editor from 2000 to 2006. He has written for the Guardian, Independent, Telegraph, Financial Times and other newspapers, regularly appears at literary/scientific festivals and conferences, and teaches creative writing through seminars, workshops and mentoring. His leisure interests include astronomy, fly fishing and classical piano.