Adam Foulds Biography Adam Foulds

Adam Foulds

Biography

Adam Foulds is a British novelist and poet who was born in 1974. His first novel, The Truth About These Strange Times, was published in 2007, for which he won a Betty Trask award and the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year award. The following year, his 40-page poem The Broken Word was published and it received critical acclaim as well. This was followed up in 2009 by the novel The Quickening Maze, which was highly praised by other writers such as Julian Barnes. Adam Foulds is only in his mid-thirties and has already taken the literature world by storm. Fans are anxiously awaiting what he has to offer them next.

Oeuvre

The Truth About These Strange Times -- The story of two mismatched young friends who are brought together by fate

2008: The Broken Word -- A narrative poem that focuses on the white settlers' experiences during the 1963 revolution in Kenya.

2009: The Quickening Maze - The fictional story of peasant poet John Clare's experiences in an insane asylum in the early 1800s

III. Criticism

FictionCritic review of "The Truth About These Strange Times" 16 June 2008 Available online from http://fictioncritic.blogspot.com/2008/06/truth-about-these-strange-times.html

Quote: "Foulds challenges himself by choosing an unlikely scenario and then peopling it with characters who could easily be mere stereotypes."

Discussion: Essentially, what the critic is saying is that the main characters in the book (Howard and Saul) could have very easily been cliche cardboard cutouts of the typical misfits that people have read about or seen in the movies dozens of times. But because of Foulds' amazing storytelling abilities, and the complex layers that he adds to the characters, the author succeeds in creating a unique, interesting and enjoyable piece of work.

IV. Quotations

1. From the prologue of The Quickening Maze: "He started to think that the sun was shining in a new quarter of the sky. He felt no fear yet: the sun lit wonders in a new zone that held him in steady rapt amazement. He did wonder, though, why the old world had not come to an end, why the horizon was no closer." (The relevance of this quote to the 21st century is that we all stand mesmerized by what the future may bring, but the closer we get to realizing our dreams, the farther away they seem).

2. From The Broken Word: "He could see people posting themselves, third class, into the train windows or dropping carefully onto wide, unfeeling feet" (The relevance of this quote to the 21st century is that the daily grind has beaten many people down into feeling like third class objects).

3. From The Quickening Maze "Even the church, rising over the wood, the church he'd seen very day as soon as he could see at all, looked counterfeit" (The relevance of this quote to the 21st century is that religion has become increasingly fake and disingenuous over the years -- almost counterfeit).