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Andrew O'Hagan

Scotland (b.1968)

Andrew O'Hagan is one of his generation's most exciting and most serious chroniclers of contemporary Britain. He has twice been nominated for the Man Booker Prize. He was voted one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists in 2003. He has won the Los Angeles Times Book Award and the E. M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts & Letters. He lives in London.

Awards: LA Times (2007), James Tait Black (2003) see all

Genres: Literary Fiction

New and upcoming books

October 2025

On Friendship

Novels

   Our Fathers (1999)
   Personality (2003)
   Be Near Me (2006)
   The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog (2010)
   The Illuminations (2015)
   Mayflies (2020)
   Caledonian Road (2024)

Anthologies edited

The Weekenders: Travels in the Heart of Africa (2001)
The Weekenders: Adventures in Calcutta (2004)

Series contributed to

Picador New Writing
Picador New Writing: Vol 11 (2002) (with Colm Tóibín)

Non fiction show

Books containing stories by Andrew O'Hagan

Midsummer Nights (2009)
Tales from the Opera
edited by
Jeanette Winterson

The Book of Other People (2007)
edited by
Zadie Smith

The Weekenders: Travels in the Heart of Africa (2001)
edited by
Andrew O'Hagan

Awards

	2007 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction : Be Near Me
	2003 James Tait Black Memorial Prize : Personality
	2003 Granta Best of Young British Novelists

Award nominations

	2025 Dublin Literary Award (longlist) : Caledonian Road
	2024 Saltire Literary Award (longlist) : Caledonian Road
	2024 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction (finalist) : Caledonian Road
	2015 Booker Prize (longlist) : The Illuminations
	2006 Booker Prize (longlist) : Be Near Me
	2001 Dublin Literary Award (nominee) : Our Fathers
	1999 Booker Prize (shortlist) : Our Fathers

Andrew O'Hagan recommends

Universality (2025)
Natasha Brown
"I think that is the book everyone will be reading and talking about in 2025. Brave, wry, cool, and thrilling, Universality is the kind of fiction that makes you sit up and feel alive."

Something Rotten (2025)
Andrew Lipstein
"Few novels are willing to confront the stormy waters that lie between personhood, parenthood, the imagined life, and reality. Our best novelists have it all right in front of them, if they possess the talent to look up and see. There may be something rotten in the state of Denmark, or the state of manhood, but the net result in Something Rotten is a book about a vacation that is both outrageous and very funny. Sometimes, in these ultra-serious times, we are apt to forget that fiction, in its origins, is a comic form. Andrew Lipstein provides a reminder, and his latest novel is a brilliant antidote to the nonsense of now."

Frankie (2024)
Graham Norton
"Frankie is a perfect song of a book and everyone who likes human beings should read it."

Glasgow Boys (2024)
Margaret McDonald
"What a lovely book. Glasgow Boys is tenderness itself, a song to love and friendship. I really cared about Finlay and Banjo and all the flesh-and-blood people around them, wishing them all the best. Margaret McDonald is a terrific new talent and I encourage you to buy this novel for everyone who makes you smile."

The Three Graces (2023)
Amanda Craig
"People talk about the infirmities of old age, but what about the firmities? What about the beliefs, the events, the politics, the odd secret? The Three Graces is a brilliant piece of storytelling that revels in the world of expat old ladies in Tuscany, and it should be the book everybody's reading this summer. The setting's idyllic, the air is mild in May, but there's a threat of England and family histories just beyond the horizon. It's a novel E.M. Foster would've loved."

The Young Accomplice (2022)
Benjamin Wood
"Benjamin Wood is a beautiful writer and this is his best novel yet, both gripping and unputdownable. Like people in Thomas Hardy, his characters surge from the page, and the mystery unfolds with a sureness seldom seen in contemporary British fiction."

Reward System (2022)
Jem Calder
"Jem Calder is my favourite new writer, or my new favourite writer, I can't decide which, and his book Reward System is the best debut by a British fiction writer in years. If you've been waiting for someone to close the gap on social distancing, to capture the furtive problems of social media, to make you laugh at your own alienation, to wrap your mind around the narcissism of small differences, then Calder is your new best friend and his debut collection is the must-read book of the year."

Love Marriage (2022)
Monica Ali
"I have loved every one of Monica Ali's books and Love Marriage is her best. A huge, bounteous story, it is lit from end to end with human variety and storytelling brilliance. Ali writes like an angel who is not afraid of the devil. It will be a novel of the year and confirms Monica Ali as a national treasure."

Small Things Like These (2021)
Claire Keegan
"A true gift of a book… Reading it brings a sublime Chekhovian shock."

Wild Pets (2021)
Amber Medland
"A ripe and excellent debut... funny and smart and human and true."

A Theatre for Dreamers (2020)
Polly Samson
"If summer was suddenly like a novel, it would be like this one."

The Dollmaker (2019)
Nina Allan
"In clean, beautiful, agile prose, Nina Allan is able to conjure a recognisable England and a place of deep enchantment. The world of The Dollmaker is not only one we know, it seems to know us, and readers will lose and find themselves inside Allan's wonderful creation. A fantastic book, revealing a zone of wonder and a world of truth."

Moving Kings (2017)
Joshua Cohen
"Funny, smart, and perfectly addictive, Moving Kings is a novel of wonderful scope. It shows Cohen at the top of his powers and is bound to bring him many new readers, hot for a fresh understanding of America."

Island of Wings (2011)
Karin Altenberg
"A beautiful story of love and loss among the dark sea cliffs of St Kilda... precise, subtle, spiritually alive."

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