Michel Faber

Michel Faber is a Dutch fiction writer who immigrated to Scotland in the early 1990s.

Born in The Netherlands and educated in Australia, Faber studied various language-based subjects before training as a nurse in Sydney. While the Dutch consider him Dutch and the Australians consider him Australian, in Scotland he is embraced as Scottish; he still lives in the country and has been awarded a number of Scottish literary prizes including the Macallen Short Story Prize and the Neil Gunn Prize.

Michel is the author of the Whitbread-shortlisted novel Under the Skin and The Book of Strange New Things, shortlisted for the Arthur C Clarke Award and winner of the 2015 Saltire Book of the Year, as well as a number of other novels and novellas.

In 2016, he published his first poetry collection Undying: A Love Story about the death of his wife.

Michel Faber: New Ways of Hearing

Wednesday 14 August 10:45 - 11:45

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In Michel Faber’s first longform non-fiction work, Listen: On Music, Sound and Us, the acclaimed author of Under the Skin and lifelong music lover imagines a whole new kind of music biography. Here, the stories of those who make the music are secondary…

Books by Michel Faber

Buy from our Festival Bookshop during the festival, from Waterstones using the link below, or find your preferred local book seller.

Look, Listen & Read

Michel Faber (2010 event)

The acclaimed author of The Crimson Petal and the White describes how ‘elsewhere’ can be hilariously ordinary…

Michel Faber: The ‘Evil Is In The ‘Etail (2020 Event)

Reminiscent of Charles Dickens and of Lewis Carroll, Michel Faber’s fable D is a delightful sideways look at the evils of our times. He joins us to discuss Dhikilo’s wild odyssey with literary critic Stuart Kelly in this event recorded for the 2020 Book…

Michel Faber reading A Flash of Blue Light

Hear the bestselling author of The Crimson Petal and the White read his new story inspired by the theme of 'Elsewhere'…

I Will Not Kick That Ladder by Michel Faber

In the early 1980s, I was one of immigration’s failures. Dutch by birth, I’d been granted “permanent resident” status in Australia, where I busied myself being an unemployed fringe-dweller and unpublished writer…

Michel Faber (2016 Event)

The acclaimed author of Under the Skin and The Book of Strange New Things reads from a collection of deeply moving poems entitled Undying. In tender, bittersweet verse, Michel Faber grieves for his wife Eva who died in 2014 after a six year battle with…

Jenny Erpenbeck with Michel Faber (2015 Event)

If you only read one novel this year, make it The End of Days. A book that takes a series of surprising turns, it confirms German author Jenny Erpenbeck as ‘one of the finest, most exciting authors alive’. That reviewer was fellow novelist…