Notes on a Nervous Planet

About Matt Haig

Matt Haig is an author for children and adults. His memoir Reasons to Stay Alive was a number one bestseller, staying in the British top ten for 46 weeks. His children’s book A Boy Called Christmas was a runaway hit and is translated in over 40 languages. It is being made into a film starring Maggie Smith, Sally Hawkins and Jim Broadbent and The Guardian called it an ‘instant classic’. His novels for adults include  the award-winning How To Stop Time, The Radleys, The Humans and the number one bestseller The Midnight Library.

He has sold over three million books worldwide.

Matt Haig on his teen novel, The Radleys:
"This is a story about growing up, first and foremost.  About how we learn to come to terms with who we are, independent of the ideas our parents had for us.  About how we decide our own identities.  As well as what shapes those identities - who we choose to love, and hate, admire and fear.  It is about how denying ourselves can sometimes be more dangerous than succumbing to tempation.  This is the story I wanted to tell. I never set out to write a vampire story, but vampires were the obvious choice.  After all, as family secrets go, you can't get much bigger than finding out you are actually a full-blown creature of the night.  And hopefully it fits as a metaphor for teenage life.  A life full of physical changes, forbidden cravings, and feelings of being an outsider.  In that sense, we've probably all been vampires at some stage."

Author photo © Clive Doyle