Jonathan Falla

Jonathan Falla is an English writer based in Fife, Scotland.

In 2001, Falla published his debut novel, ''Blue Poppies''. His second novel, ''Poor Mercy'', was published in 2005. He has also written a number of short stories and plays including ''Topokana Martyrs Day'' (first produced at the Bush Theatre, London, in 1982, and subsequently in Salisbury, Los Angeles, New York and for the BBC World Service), and the screenplay for ''The Hummingbird Tree'', a feature filmed by the BBC in Trinidad and first screened in 1991. In 2007, he was shortlisted for the National Short Story Prize for his short story ''The Morena.''

Falla was born in 1954 in Jamaica. He won a scholarship to study English literature and the History of Western Art at Cambridge University from 1973–77 and in 1978 began work as a language advisor and editor for an educational publisher in Bandung, Java. In 1992 he was the recipient of a Senior Fulbright Fellowship at the University of Southern California. As a Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund he worked as a language advisor at Dundee University from 2006-2009, and from 2009 to 2020 was the Director of the Creative Writing Summer Schools at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. He taught Creative Writing and Humanities for the Open University UK.

In addition to writing, he is trained in paediatric and tropical nursing and has worked for aid and medical agencies in Indonesia, Nepal, Sudan, Myanmar, and Uganda. Much of his writing is informed by this experience and by extensive travels in Asia, Africa and the Americas. He is married and has one son. Provided by Wikipedia