Philip Hoare taught for many years on the Creative Writing Programme at the University of Southampton, helping to establish its reputation as a centre for non-fiction writing.
The Philip Hoare prize has been launched on the occasion of his retirement from teaching to celebrate his life and writing.
Here’s what Philip has to say –
‘Non-fiction’. So what is that? A non- thing? Actually, it’s the licence to explore your writing in wild and wonderful ways.
I’ve always found the boundaries of literary genres a ridiculous thing. We’re all telling stories. We draw from our lives, from other lives, of human and non-human beings. Of the resonance of places and the origins of dreams. ‘Narrative non-fiction’ and ‘Creative non-fiction’ are almost redundant terms for a way of writing that opens up the world. Never have the facts been more important; never has their interpretation, through the art of writing, been more essential.
Whether you are writing about the weather or whales or trauma or memory or the absolute fascination you have felt about a person; an idea, a history, a future, or your own story; all of these is open to you, in this freedom from categories, realising your creavity in your own words. Emotional reaction, fantastical exploit, or direct reportage: whatever inspiration you draw on, it is your voice that speaks to the truth.
Philip Hoare’s books include Serious Pleasures: The Life of Stephen Tennant and Noël Coward: A Biography; Wilde’s Last Stand, Spike Island, and England’s Lost Eden. Leviathan or, The Whale won the 2009 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize and is published in the UK, US, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, Russia and China. It was followed by The Sea Inside (2013), RISINGTIDEFALLINGSTAR (2017) and Albert and the Whale (2021).
His latest book, William Blake and the Sea Monsters of Love, is published by 4th Estate in the UK, and was released on April 10th 2025.
Philip Hoare Competition 