Edward St. Aubyn

Edward St Aubyn was born in London in 1960. He was educated at Westminster school and Keble college, Oxford University. He is the author of nine novels, of which ‘Mother’s Milk’ was shortlisted for the 2006 Man Booker Prize, won the 2007 Prix Femina Etranger, and won the 2007 South Bank Show award for literature.

His first novel, ‘Never Mind’ (1992), won the Betty Trask award. This novel, along with ‘Bad News’ (1992) and ‘Some Hope’ (1994), became a trilogy, now collectively published under the title ‘Some Hope’. His other fiction consists of ‘On the Edge’ (1998), which was shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Prize, and A Clue to the Exit (2000).

Five of St Aubyn's novels, Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, Mother's Milk, and At Last, form The Patrick Melrose Novels, the first four of which were republished in a single volume in 2012 in anticipation of the fifth. They are based on the author's own life; the titular protagonist grows up in a highly dysfunctional upper-class English family and deals with his father's sexual abuse, the deaths of both parents, alcoholism, heroin addiction and recovery, and marriage and parenthood.

 The books have been hailed as a powerful exploration of how emotional health can be carved out of childhood trauma.