Jonathan Coe

Lisa Salem-Wiseman (Humber College)

Jonathan Coe is one of those rare novelists who succeed in combining formal innovation, biting social commentary, playful humour, and engaging plots and characters. His novels employ unconventional narrative structures, confront serious social issues, and explore provocative ideas, but they are also what are commonly described as “good reads”.

Jonathan Coe was born on August 19, 1961, in a suburb of Birmingham, England. His family was middle-class, with conservative political leanings. He attended King Edward’s School, a competitive, academic grammar school in Birmingham. Coe has been writing fiction since he was a child; at the age of eight, while on a family holiday in Wales, Coe wrote a long, mock-Victorian de

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Citation:
Salem-Wiseman, Lisa. "Jonathan Coe". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 07 March 2007
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5843, accessed 09 September 2010.]

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Life, Works and Times

Dates:

Life: 1961 -
Activity: 1987 -

Places:

Birth: England
Primary Activity: England

Activities:

Novelist (Primary)