Philip pullman biography facts for kids

Philip Pullman has referred to himself as knowingly "of the Devil's party", a reference to William Blake's revisionist view of Milton in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Philip Pullman was flattered and asked his publisher to include quotes from Caldecott's article in his next book. However, he was more critical of The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, accusing Philip Pullman of being a "Protestant atheist" for supporting the teachings of Christ but being critical of organised religion.

Philip Pullman has found support from some Christians, most notably Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, who argued that Philip Pullman's attacks focus on the constraints and dangers of dogmatism and the use of religion to oppress, not on Christianity itself. Williams recommended His Dark Materials for discussion in Religious Education classes, and said that "to see large school-parties in the audience of the Philip Pullman plays at the National Theatre is vastly encouraging".

Philip Pullman reiterated that it was useless to "become censorious about [religion], to say there is no God". The Times. Retrieved on The New Yorker. If you are interested to find out more about Phillip Pullman, get more facts here. His Dark Materials is a trilogy. You can find the first book of this trilogy is entitled as Northern Lights.

It made him earned Carnegie Medal from the Library Association in Because of this achievement, he becomes the A-list English language children book author in the world. This movie was starred by the famous artist Nicole Kidman. Because of this book, Pullman was called the writer with Carnegie of Carnegies on June 21, Are you curious to find out the place of birth of Phillip Pullman?

My mind and my body reacted to certain lines from the Songs of Innocence and of Experience , from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell , from 'Auguries of Innocence', from Europe , from America with the joyful immediacy of a flame leaping to meet a gas jet. I knew they were true in the way I knew that I was alive. In an interview with the Oxford Student , he noted that he "did not really enjoy the English course", and that "I thought I was doing quite well until I came out with my third class degree and then I realised that I wasn't — it was the year they stopped giving fourth class degrees otherwise I'd have got one of those".

Pullman married Judith Speller in and they have two sons. At the time of his marriage he began teaching children aged 9 to 13 at Bishop Kirk Middle School in Summertown, North Oxford , as well as writing school plays. Galatea , an adult fantasy-fiction novel, followed in , but it was his school plays which inspired his first children's book, Count Karlstein , in He stopped teaching shortly after the publication of The Ruby in the Smoke , a Victorian mystery and the first book in the Sally Lockhart tetralogy.

Between and , Pullman taught part-time at Westminster College, Oxford, continuing to write children's stories. He began His Dark Materials in about Pullman won both the annual Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize , a similar award that authors may not win twice. Pullman has been writing full-time since He continues to deliver talks and writes occasionally for The Guardian , including writing and lecturing about education, in which he is often critical of unimaginative education policies.

In , he was elected President of the Blake Society. In Pullman also guest-edited The Mays Anthology , a collection of new writing from students at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. In , Pullman won the annual Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award from the Swedish Arts Council, recognising his career contribution to "children's and young adult literature in the broadest sense".

According to the presentation, "Pullman radically injects new life into fantasy by introducing a variety of alternative worlds and by allowing good and evil to become ambiguous. In , he was one of five finalists for the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Medal , and he was the British nominee again in On 23 November , Pullman was made an honorary professor at Bangor University.

In October , he became a patron of the Palestine Festival of Literature. He is also a patron of the Shakespeare Schools Festival , a charity that enables school children across the UK to perform Shakespeare in professional theatres. On 24 June , Pullman was awarded the degree of D. In , during a break from writing The Book of Dust , Pullman was asked by Penguin Classics to curate 50 of Grimms' classic fairytales , from their compendium of over stories.

And some are obvious classics.

Philip pullman biography facts for kids

You can't do a selected Grimms' without Rumpelstiltskin , Cinderella and so on. As part of the charity auction Authors for Grenfell Tower, Pullman offered the highest bidder a chance to name a character in the upcoming trilogy. Barrie Award to mark a "lifetime's achievement in delighting children". A lifelong fan of Norwich City F.

In , he was awarded a Honorary Doctorate by the University of Bath. The Amber Spyglass was awarded both Whitbread Prize for best children's book and the Whitbread Book of the Year prize in January , the first children's book to receive that award. He refers to a third, which will expand his character Will Parry , as the "green book". Pullman has said that the new series is neither sequel, nor prequel, but an "equel".

My principle for researching a novel is 'Read like a butterfly, write like a bee,' and if this story contains any honey, it is because of the quality of the nectar I have found in the work of better writers. He says his favorite book is probably Robert Burton 's The Anatomy of Melancholy , describing it as "a funny book about depression written in a very prolix, ornate style.

In a lecture at the Sea of Faith conference, Pullman said that "the writers we call the greatest of all — Shakespeare , Tolstoy , Proust , George Eliot herself, are those who have created the most lifelike simulacra of real human beings in real human situations. In fact the more profound and powerful the imagination, the closer to reality are the forms it dreams up.

He has praised fantasy authors like Alan Garner and Neil Gaiman.