# Will Self
**Will Self** (William Woodard Self, born 1961) is an English novelist, journalist, political commentator, and television personality known for satirical fiction and a prose style drawn from literary modernism.[1](https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/author/will-self/) His published work comprises ten novels, five short-story collections, three novellas, and five volumes of non-fiction.[1](https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/author/will-self/) His novel *Umbrella* (2012) was shortlisted for the [Booker Prize](https://www.edgepedia.org/booker-prize), and *The Butt* won the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction.[2](https://groveatlantic.com/author/will-self/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Full name / born | William Woodard Self, born 1961 in London[3](https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/self-will-1961-william-woodward-self) |
| Breakthrough | *The Quantity Theory of Insanity* (1991), which won the 1993 Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and was shortlisted for the 1992 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize[4](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/27631/will-self/) |
| Highest-profile honors | *Umbrella* shortlisted for the Booker Prize; *The Butt* won the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction; *How the Dead Live* shortlisted for the Whitbread Novel of the Year[2](https://groveatlantic.com/author/will-self/) |
| Signature style | Satire and grotesque imagery, in a deliberate return to modernist techniques such as stream-of-consciousness narration[5](https://ub-ir.bolton.ac.uk/esploro/outputs/journalArticle/Thought-on-the-outside-twenty-first-century/999499408841?institution=44UOBO_INST) |
| Recent work | *Elaine* (2025) and *The Quantity Theory of Morality* (2026)[2](https://groveatlantic.com/author/will-self/) |
| Health | Diagnosed in 2022 with secondary myelofibrosis, an advanced form of the rare blood cancer polycythaemia vera; received a stem-cell transplant in 2024[6](https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/culture/72797/will-self-interview-the-quantity-theory-of-morality) |
## Life and career
Self grew up in London and lives in [South London](https://www.edgepedia.org/south-london).[1](https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/author/will-self/) • [2](https://groveatlantic.com/author/will-self/) His parents separated and later divorced when he was about eighteen, a period in which he experimented with a range of drugs.[7](https://dspace.cuni.cz/bitstream/handle/20.500.11956/171227/130325520.pdf?sequence=1) His background won him a place at Oxford University, from which he graduated in 1982.[7](https://dspace.cuni.cz/bitstream/handle/20.500.11956/171227/130325520.pdf?sequence=1) In a widely quoted account of his earlier years, he has written of his past membership in twelve-step programs such as [Alcoholics Anonymous](https://www.edgepedia.org/alcoholics-anonymous) and [Narcotics Anonymous](https://www.edgepedia.org/narcotics-anonymous), and of a four-month residence at a Minnesota Method treatment center in the mid-1980s.[8](https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2013/04/25/waking-half-dead/) The memoir *Will* (2019) covers his struggles with drugs.[9](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/nov/08/will-will-self-review)
His first success was the 1991 story collection *The Quantity Theory of Insanity*, which critics received enthusiastically.[10](https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/a-merry-dance-will-self-takes-on-modernism) • [4](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/27631/will-self/) Since then his output has spanned novels (*My Idea of Fun*, *Great Apes*, *How the Dead Live*, *The Book of Dave*, *Umbrella*, *Shark*, *Phone*), novellas and collections such as *Grey Area* and *Tough, Tough Toys for Tough, Tough Boys*, and non-fiction including the essay collection *Why Read*.[2](https://groveatlantic.com/author/will-self/) He has been a familiar media presence, appearing on *Question Time* and *Channel Four News*, writing columns for *The New Statesman*, and contributing essays and reviews to *The Guardian* and the *London Review of Books*.[6](https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/culture/72797/will-self-interview-the-quantity-theory-of-morality) • [11](https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/smuggling-lessons-modernism-will-self)
## Satire and themes
Self's fiction is satirical by design. A reviewer for *Publishers Weekly* called him a "master of the grotesque" whose books use "vivid, jarringly unsavory imagery, richly erudite diction and a persuasive, engaging narrative voice," and his thematic preoccupations, including madness, altered states, and the authority of the psychiatric establishment, have been read as refracting his own biography.[3](https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/self-will-1961-william-woodward-self) On the publication of *How the Dead Live*, comparisons were drawn with [Jonathan Swift](https://www.edgepedia.org/jonathan-swift).[3](https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/self-will-1961-william-woodward-self) Critics have located him among experimental British novelists of the 1990s who used parody, pastiche, and intertextuality to question narrative conventions, and his early novels such as *Cock and Bull* (1992) have been read as exemplary of postmodernism in their treatment of gender identity.[12](https://research.brighton.ac.uk/en/publications/fictive-inscaping-the-1990s-fiction-of-will-self/) • [13](https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/uncg/f/Hall_uncg_0154D_11893.pdf) An essay in the journal *English* contests the view that *Cock and Bull* is sexist, arguing instead from its satirical mode.[14](https://academic.oup.com/english/article-abstract/60/230/229/529472)
Several books rework other texts and figures. *Dorian* (2002) updates [Oscar Wilde](https://www.edgepedia.org/oscar-wilde)'s *The Picture of Dorian Gray*, moving London's decadent underworld into the late twentieth century.[3](https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/self-will-1961-william-woodward-self) *The Book of Dave* (2006) imagines a London cab driver's mental-breakdown rantings rediscovered after 500 years and used as the foundation of a new religion.[15](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/aug/05/will-self-umbrella-booker-interview) Self's fiction frequently features the psychiatrist Zack Busner, a thinly veiled counterpart in a mutually parasitic relationship with the narrator "Will Self" in *Walking to Hollywood*.[8](https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2013/04/25/waking-half-dead/)
## Modernism and *Umbrella*
Self has described finding conventional English prose fiction constricting from an early age, and his *Umbrella* brought modernist techniques into a twenty-first-century novel.[16](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/aug/03/will-self-modernism-and-me) The book spans 92 years, centers on Audrey Dearth, a munitions worker incarcerated in 1918 at Friern hospital after falling victim to encephalitis lethargica, and examines the legacy of the First World War, anti-psychiatry, the relativity of madness, and technology's impact on the body.[15](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/aug/05/will-self-umbrella-booker-interview) Its title comes from a [James Joyce](https://www.edgepedia.org/james-joyce) quotation: "A brother is as easily forgotten as an umbrella."[15](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/aug/05/will-self-umbrella-booker-interview) The novel compresses its narrative into a continuous present, realized as a single paragraph stretched over 600 pages.[6](https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/culture/72797/will-self-interview-the-quantity-theory-of-morality) Scholarly work on the novel argues that Self's version of modernism owes more to [William James](https://www.edgepedia.org/william-james)'s idea of the "stream of thought" from *Principles of Psychology* (1890) than to interior monologue as a literary form.[5](https://ub-ir.bolton.ac.uk/esploro/outputs/journalArticle/Thought-on-the-outside-twenty-first-century/999499408841?institution=44UOBO_INST)
## Views on writing and the novel
Self has said plainly that he does not write for readers, and critics note his refusal to make his fiction accessible: his novels run to several hundred pages and indulge in archaic diction.[15](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/aug/05/will-self-umbrella-booker-interview) • [13](https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/uncg/f/Hall_uncg_0154D_11893.pdf) In 2014, in a deliberately provocative essay for the BBC's *A Point of View*, he argued that [George Orwell](https://www.edgepedia.org/george-orwell)'s unadorned style had made him the "Supreme Mediocrity," while conceding he had read Orwell's books many times over.[17](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/01/will-self-george-orwell-supreme-mediocrity) He has also repeatedly argued that the novel, particularly literary fiction, is in decline in the digital era; according to his account, the internet's ever-expanding mass of literature prevents original imagining and erodes the private, reflective capacity needed for sustained engagement with fiction. The critic Peter Boxall, Professor of English at the [University of Sussex](https://www.edgepedia.org/university-of-sussex), rebutted this in *The Value of the Novel*, arguing that the novel has historically derived its power precisely from its precariousness.[18](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jan/23/the-value-of-the-novel-peter-boxall-review-literary-criticism)
## Recent years
Self was diagnosed in 2022 with secondary myelofibrosis, an advanced form of the rare blood cancer polycythaemia vera, and received a stem-cell transplant in 2024; the illness left him bedbound for a period and largely out of public view.[6](https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/culture/72797/will-self-interview-the-quantity-theory-of-morality) He continued to write through it: *Elaine* (2025) reimagines his mother's life as a thwarted writer in 1950s upstate New York, and *The Quantity Theory of Morality* (March 2026) is a sequel to his debut, an excoriating satire of the English middle class in which each chapter replays the opening chapter from another character's perspective.[19](https://www.theguardian.com/books/willself) • [20](https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/authors/profiles/article/99466-will-self-s-savage-world.html) • [6](https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/culture/72797/will-self-interview-the-quantity-theory-of-morality) The new novel ends with a vision of the author's own funeral, and its roots reach back to his 2010 short story "The Minor Character," which he had adapted for a Sky Arts film with [David Tennant](https://www.edgepedia.org/david-tennant).[6](https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/culture/72797/will-self-interview-the-quantity-theory-of-morality) In interviews around the book, Self has declared that "satire has died," tying its fate to that of parliamentary democracy.[6](https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/culture/72797/will-self-interview-the-quantity-theory-of-morality)
## References
1. [Will Self, Bloomsbury Publishing](https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/author/will-self/)
2. [Will Self, Grove Atlantic](https://groveatlantic.com/author/will-self/)
3. [Self, Will 1961- (William Woodward Self), Encyclopedia.com](https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/self-will-1961-william-woodward-self)
4. [Will Self, Penguin Random House](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/27631/will-self/)
5. [Jill Marsden, "Thought on the outside: twenty-first century modernism in Will Self's Umbrella," *Textual Practice* (2016)](https://ub-ir.bolton.ac.uk/esploro/outputs/journalArticle/Thought-on-the-outside-twenty-first-century/999499408841?institution=44UOBO_INST)
6. [Philip Clark, "Will Self, satire's elegist," *Prospect* (March 2026)](https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/culture/72797/will-self-interview-the-quantity-theory-of-morality)
7. [Charles University thesis on Will Self](https://dspace.cuni.cz/bitstream/handle/20.500.11956/171227/130325520.pdf?sequence=1)
8. [Fintan O'Toole, "Waking Up the Half-Dead," *The New York Review of Books* (2013)](https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2013/04/25/waking-half-dead/)
9. ["Will by Will Self review, an unsparing memoir of addiction," *The Guardian* (2019)](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/nov/08/will-will-self-review)
10. ["A Merry Dance: Will Self Takes on Modernism," *Los Angeles Review of Books*](https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/a-merry-dance-will-self-takes-on-modernism)
11. ["Smuggling the Lessons of Modernism: Will Self," *Los Angeles Review of Books*](https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/smuggling-lessons-modernism-will-self)
12. ["Fictive Inscaping: the 1990s fiction of Will Self," University of Brighton](https://research.brighton.ac.uk/en/publications/fictive-inscaping-the-1990s-fiction-of-will-self/)
13. [UNC Greensboro doctoral thesis on Will Self](https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/uncg/f/Hall_uncg_0154D_11893.pdf)
14. ["Kicks Against the Pricks: Gender, Sex, and Satire in Will Self's Cock and Bull," *English* 60 (2011)](https://academic.oup.com/english/article-abstract/60/230/229/529472)
15. [Elizabeth Day, "Will Self: 'I don't write for readers'," *The Guardian* (2012)](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/aug/05/will-self-umbrella-booker-interview)
16. ["Will Self: modernism and me," *The Guardian* (2012)](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/aug/03/will-self-modernism-and-me)
17. ["Will Self declares George Orwell the 'Supreme Mediocrity'," *The Guardian* (2014)](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/01/will-self-george-orwell-supreme-mediocrity)
18. ["The Value of the Novel by Peter Boxall review, Will Self is wrong, the novel is thriving," *The Guardian* (2016)](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jan/23/the-value-of-the-novel-peter-boxall-review-literary-criticism)
19. [Will Self coverage, *The Guardian*](https://www.theguardian.com/books/willself)
20. ["Will Self's Savage World," *Publishers Weekly* (2026)](https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/authors/profiles/article/99466-will-self-s-savage-world.html)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Literature and written works › Writers and literary biographies › Fiction writers: novelists and genre › British and Irish literary novelists › British and Irish novelists after 1945*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 17, 2026; Sep 30, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Sep 30, 2026; Oct 12, 2026; Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
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