About
Philip Pullman is an English author born in Norwich in 1946. After studying at Exeter College, Oxford, he taught middle school and later became a part-time lecturer at Westminster College, Oxford. He is best known for his fantasy trilogy His Dark Materials, whose first volume, Northern Lights, won the Carnegie Medal in 1995. The third volume, The Amber Spyglass, was the first children's book to win the Whitbread Book of the Year Award in 2001. He also wrote the Sally Lockhart series and the trilogy The Book of Dust. An atheist and humanist, his work critiques organized religion. He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2004 and knighted in 2019.
* 1946-10-19
Major works
- Northern Lights (1995)novel
- The Subtle Knife (1997)novel
- The Amber Spyglass (2000)novel
- La Belle Sauvage (2017)novel
- The Secret Commonwealth (2019)novel
Key milestones
- 1995Wins the Carnegie Medal for Northern Lights.
- 2001The Amber Spyglass is the first children's book to win the Whitbread Book of the Year Award.
- 2019Knighted in the New Year Honours for services to literature.
Themes
Critique of organized religionQuest for knowledgeMythology and classical literaturePhilosophyAdventure and parallel worlds
Sources: id.loc.gov · penguinrandomhouse.com · britannica.com