VISIT MICHAEL DE LARRABEITI'S NEW WEB SITE

Mug shot

Michael de Larrabeiti

NOTES FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE BORRIBLE TRILOGY

I was very pleased to see so many positive comments about The Borrible books on the Amazon pages, and from so many different places: Terre Haute; Dublin; Albuquerque; Houston; Vancouver; Australia; Arizona.

Someone asked for some biographical information:
Born 18 August 1934 in Lambeth, London, England.
Grew up in various parts of South London; mainly Battersea. Left school at 16 yrs old; first job was in a public library, Wandsworth; then worked at many things - cinema projectionist, petrol pump attendant, greengrocer's shop assistant, accountant at the Savoy Hotel, travel guide in France and Morocco, assistant director of a hotel on the Cote d'Azur, camera assistant, boom-swinger, English teacher in Casablanca.
In the spring of 1959 I lived and worked with a group of Provencal shepherds, travelling with them on the transhumance, shepherding, on foot, 3000 sheep 200 miles from the Mediterranean coast of France, near Grimaud, to the summer pastures of the Alps. (see THE PROVENCAL TALES, published by Pavilion Books, London; and St Martin's Press, New York.)
A member of the Oxford University Marco Polo Expedition. I rode a motor-bike from England to Afghanistan and India in 1960. (See TRACKING MARCO POLO, by Tim Severin; Routledge and Kegan Paul, London 1964 Reprinted, 1984, as a Zenith paperback by Arrow Books Ltd., London).
Between 1961/5 I was an undergraduate at Trinity College, Dublin, and read English and French. From there I went to the Sorbonne in Paris for a year.
Took up writing in the early 1970's, while continuing to support myself, and family, by working as a film technician and/or tour guide.

Michael de Larrabeiti is married and has three daughters .

1972 First book published. A western, THE REDWATER RAID; Coronet paperback, London.
1976 THE BORRIBLES; The Bodley Head, London.
1978 THE BORRIBLES published in hardback by Macmillan Inc., New York, and named one of the Best Books for 1978 by the American Library Association.
1978 A ROSE BEYOND THE THAMES published by the Bodley Head, London. An autobiographical novel.
1980 THE BUNCE published by Michael Joseph, London. A thriller. This book was short-listed for the top crime-writers' award, the Golden Dagger. THE BUNCE also published, in a bowdlerised version, by Doubleday, New York: and translated into French as 'LA BANDE A BONI' - published by Gallimard, Paris.
1981 THE BORRIBLES GO FOR BROKE. Second of THE BORRIBLE TRILOGY, published by The Bodley Head, London.
THE BORRIBLES performed on stage by The Young Vic Company, with school-children taking all the roles. This show came complete with songs.
1983 IGAMOR, THE LONG, LONG HORSE. A picture book published by Pelham Books, London.
1984/7 About this time THE BORRIBLE TRILOGY was published by Ace Books, New York.
1986 THE BORRIBLES; ACROSS THE DARK METROPOLIS, published by Pan Books, London.
1988 THE HOLLYWOOD TAKES, a thriller, published by Doubleday, New York.
THE PROVENCAL TALES published by Pavilion Books, London .
1989 THE PROVENCAL TALES published by St Martin's Press, New York.
About this time I began writing travel articles for the Sunday Times, London, and began ten years of travel, visiting about 60 countries.
1992 THE JOURNAL OF A SAD HERMAPHRODITE, published by Aidan Ellis and Co, Henley.
1998 Begin writing a new novel; not a BORRIBLE book.

Home | Intro | Books | Author | Gallery | Cuttings | Lyrics | Email