After university he worked as a TV researcher before turning fulltime to fiction. Growing up as a second generation self-described British-Jewish atheist, Will did well at school, and some incidents that actually took place there are found in his first novel New Boy, published when he was 25. He and his wife, who came over to the UK in the 1960s, lived comfortably in the North-West London suburbs. Will’s father, whose family originated from Lithuania, was an early computer programmer. And out now, The Summer We Turned Green makes the case for resisting climate change so powerfully it could well influence numbers of young readers to follow in similar directions themselves. We See Everything describes a dystopian world dominated by surveillance from the sky. Concentr8 takes on the scandal of excessive drug prescription for children judged to be suffering from ADHD, sometimes only after minimal investigation. This was shortlisted for the 2014 Carnegie Medal, and published with an alternative cover aimed at adult readers. The Wall is a moving story about an Israeli boy falling for an Arab girl living on the other side of what is clearly the West Bank Wall, although never named as such. They are trying to say something meaningful about life.’Īnd they do.

As he puts it himself, ‘All my novels are comic novels but dead serious. But his stories also engage with issues he feels strongly about. Once a member of the Cambridge Footlights, he continues to be very, very funny in his fiction. Now aiming principally at the Young Adult market, he has much to offer older readers too. William Sutcliffe (‘Will’) is a brilliant writer. Authorgraph No.249: William Sutcliffe Author: Nicholas Tucker

Concentr8 by william sutcliffe