About William Boyd
William Andrew Murray Boyd (born 7 March 1952) is a British novelist, short story writer screenwriter and film director. He is best known for his novels, which include A Good Man in Africa (1981), Any Human Heart (2002), and Restless (2006), many of which have received critical acclaim and literary awards. Boyd has also written screenplays for film and television, including Chaplin (1992), and directed the World War I drama The Trench (1999). His work is characterised by its narrative vitality and range, earning him numerous accolades including the Whitbread First Novel Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and the Costa Book Award. A number of his works are what he describes as "whole-life" novels which follow a protagonist through the highs and lows of a varied and often remarkable life. He regularly fuses fact with fiction and his lead characters encounter well-known historical figures. He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2005 for services to literature. John Self, writing for The Booker Prizes, described Boyd’s work as “vigorous, entertaining novels” produced by an “exceptionally fertile imagination,” and praised his fiction as “fully committed to his stories and characters.” == Biography == Boyd was born in Accra, Gold Coast (present-day Ghana), to Scottish parents, both from Fife, and has two younger sisters. His father Alexander, a doctor specialising in tropical medicine, and Boyd's mother, who was a teacher, moved to the Gold Coast in 1950 to run the health clinic at the University College of the Gold Coast, Legon (now the University of Ghana). In the early 1960s, the family moved to western Nigeria, where Boyd's father held a similar position at the University of Ibadan.
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