Nathan Filer

Nathan Filer is a British writer best known for his debut novel, The Shock of the Fall. This won several major literary awards, including the Costa Book of the Year[1] and the Betty Trask Prize.[2] It was a Sunday Times Bestseller,[3] and has been translated into thirty languages.[4]

Nathan Filer
OccupationWriter, Lecturer
NationalityBritish
Alma materUniversity of the West of England
Notable worksThe Shock of the Fall
Notable awardsCosta Book of the Year
Betty Trask Prize
 Literature portal

Life and career

Filer was born in Bristol in 1980. He attended the Ridings High School, a large secondary school located in the village of Winterbourne in South Gloucestershire.[5] In 2002 he trained as a psychiatric nurse gaining a first class degree in Mental Health Nursing from the University of the West of England[6] and later worked in mental health research at the University of Bristol.[7]

He also worked as a performance poet contributing regularly to festivals and spoken-word events across the UK, including Glastonbury, Latitude, Shambala, Port Eliot and the Cheltenham Literature Festival. His poetry has been broadcast on television and radio, including BBC Radio 4's Bespoken Word and Wondermentalist Cabaret.[8] In 2005 Filer's comedy short film Oedipus won the BBC Best New Filmmaker Award and numerous international prizes.[9]

The Shock of the Fall describes the life of a boy from Bristol dealing with his grief at the death of his brother, and experience of mental health care services for schizophrenia.[10][11][12] Reviewing the book in The Psychologist, Caroline Flurey writes, "This is a beautifully poignant book, written with sympathy and sensitivity, well deserving of its Costa Book of the Year award."[13]

Filer has written on a range of issues for The Guardian.[14][15][16] A story he wrote for The New York Times[17] that described working with the International Solidarity Movement in Palestine was adapted for an episode of the Israeli prime time radio show, Israel Story, featuring Filer and his partner.[18] He has also been a panelist on the BBC Radio 2 Book Club, BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking and BBC Radio 4's Open Book, Front Row, All in the Mind and the Today Programme.[4] In 2017 he presented an Archive on 4 documentary entitled The Mind in the Media in which he explored representations of mental illness and their impact.[19] This was shortlisted for a Mind Media Award in the best radio programme category.[20]

Nathan Filer's first book of non-fiction, The Heartland: Finding and Losing Schizophrenia, was published by Faber and Faber in 2019. It was a Sunday Times Book of the Year[21] and the charity, Rethink Mental Illness, named it as one of their Mental Health Books of the Decade.[22] It was also longlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize.[23]

Filer has been awarded the honorary degree of Master of Letters from the University of the West of England[24] and the honorary degree of Doctor of Liberal Arts from Abertay University.[25] These degrees were conferred in recognition of his role in raising awareness through literature and his commitment to mental health care.[24][25]

He holds a master's degree in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University,[10] where he is a Reader and Senior Lecturer.

Books
  • The Shock of the Fall (HarperFiction, 2013; The Borough Press, 2014)
  • The Heartland (also published as This Book will Change Your Mind about Mental Health [26]) (Faber, 2019)

Awards and honours

References
  1. "Nathan Filer wins Costa Book of the Year with debut novel". BBC News. 28 January 2014. Retrieved 30 January 2014.
  2. Lisa Campbell (30 June 2014). "Filer and McBride among SoA award winners". The Bookseller. Retrieved 17 October 2014.
  3. "The Shock of the Fall". Conville & Walsh. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
  4. "Who is this guy?". Nathan Filer website. Retrieved 23 March 2015.
  5. MacCormick, Ken (29 January 2014). "Bristol author Nathan Filer wins Costa Book of the Year award". Bristol Post. Archived from the original on 30 January 2014. Retrieved 30 January 2014.
  6. "Nathan Filer alumnus profile". University of the West of England. 7 September 2015.
  7. "Nathan Filer". Conville & Walsh. Retrieved 30 January 2014.
  8. "Nathan Filer". Apples & Snakes. Retrieved 19 October 2014.
  9. "Nathan Filer". National Book Awards. Retrieved 24 February 2015.
  10. Brown, Mark (28 January 2014). "Costa book award won by Nathan Filer for debut novel, The Shock of the Fall". The Guardian. Retrieved 30 January 2014.
  11. Clark, Nick (28 January 2014). "Costa Book of the Year: Debut novelist Nathan Filer is shock winner of prestigious prize". Independent. Retrieved 30 January 2014.
  12. Chilton, Martin (7 January 2014). "The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Filer, review". The Telegraph. Retrieved 30 January 2014.
  13. Fluery, C. (2014), "Beautifully poignant", The Psychologist, Vol. 27, No. 6, June 2014, p. 460.
  14. Nathan Filer (25 January 2014). "Mental Health Care: where did it all go so wrong?". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 February 2015.
  15. Nathan Filer (31 July 2014). "Why you should ignore the superlatives on book jackets". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 February 2015.
  16. Nathan Filer (7 February 2014). "My Hero: Malala Yousafzai". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 February 2015.
  17. Nathan Filer (21 November 2014). "Rules of Engagement". The New York Times. Retrieved 11 February 2015.
  18. "Episode 12 Now Boarding". 2016. Retrieved 25 July 2017.
  19. "The Mind in the Media". BBC Radio 4. 4 March 2017.
  20. "Mind Media Awards 2017 The Shortlist". Mind. 16 October 2017.
  21. McConnachie, James (1 December 2019). "The Sunday Times best thought books of the year 2019". ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 5 December 2019.
  22. Illness, Rethink Mental (23 December 2019). "The last in our instalment of our #mentalhealth books of the decade is The Heartland by @nathanfiler Here's our Senior Media Officer, Patrick, with his thoughts pic.twitter.com/VEx7MmXxeA". @Rethink_. Retrieved 15 February 2020.
  23. https://www.rathbonesfolioprize.com/the-2020-shortlist-2-3-2/
  24. "UWE awards Honorary Degree to Nathan Filer". University of the West of England. 23 July 2015. Retrieved 12 August 2015.
  25. "Award-winning author Nathan Filer to receive Honorary degree at Abertay". Abertay University. 25 November 2015. Retrieved 30 November 2015.
  26. "Faber to rebrand Nathan Filer's mental health book | The Bookseller". www.thebookseller.com. Retrieved 5 December 2019.
  27. "Bath Spa University Lecturer Nathan Filer recognised at the Specsavers National Book Awards 2014". Bath Chronicle. 28 November 2014. Retrieved 30 November 2014.
  28. "Writers' Guild Awards: Winners Announced". Archived from the original on 21 January 2015. Retrieved 21 January 2015.
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