Philip Pullman

Philip Pullman was born on October 19, 1946, in Norwich, England, and grew up in a family shaped by frequent moves — his father died when Pullman was seven, his mother remarried a Royal Air Force officer, and the family lived in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and Australia before returning to England. He studied English at Exeter College, Oxford, and worked for many years as a teacher and lecturer before the success of his fiction allowed him to write full-time. Pullman has cited John Milton’s Paradise Lost, William Blake, and the tradition of northern English mythology as among the most important influences on his work, and these references permeate his writing in ways that reward scholarly attention without ever becoming inaccessible to younger readers.

Pullman is best known for His Dark Materials, a trilogy consisting of Northern Lights (published in the US as The Golden Compass, 1995), The Subtle Knife (1997), and The Amber Spyglass (2000). The trilogy follows the orphaned Lyra Belacqua and Will Parry through multiple parallel universes in a narrative that draws on Miltonic cosmology, quantum physics, and the traditions of epic adventure while simultaneously constituting a profound philosophical argument about consciousness, free will, and the dangers of institutional authority — particularly religious authority. The series is one of the most ambitious and controversial works ever published as young adult fiction, and The Amber Spyglass became the first children’s book to win the Whitbread Prize (now Costa Prize) for Book of the Year.

The trilogy has sold over 25 million copies worldwide, has been adapted for stage, film, and the highly praised BBC television series His Dark Materials. Pullman returned to the world of Lyra with La Belle Sauvage (2017) and The Secret Commonwealth (2019), the first two volumes of The Book of Dust trilogy, which expands on Lyra’s story before and after the events of His Dark Materials. His other works include the Sally Lockhart mysteries and Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm, a critically acclaimed retelling of the classic stories.

Pullman’s writing is celebrated for its extraordinary world-building, its intellectual seriousness, its moral courage in engaging with difficult questions about religion and authority, and the beauty and precision of its prose. He writes with a Milton scholar’s love of language and a storyteller’s instinct for wonder and terror, creating fiction that operates simultaneously on the level of thrilling adventure and profound philosophical inquiry. Philip Pullman was knighted in 2019 and is widely regarded as one of the greatest English-language authors of his generation, in any genre.