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Sebastian Faulks

Novelist, Journalist, and Broadcaster

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Sebastian Faulks Biography

He is best known for his historical novels set in France — The Girl at the Lion d'Or, Birdsong, and Charlotte Gray.

Sebastian Faulks was born in Donnington, a village near Newbury in Berkshire on April 20, 1953. He was the younger son of Peter Faulks (1917-1998) and Pamela, née Lawless (1923-2003). Peter Faulks was a partner in the local law firm Pitman and Bazett. He had interrupted his legal training in 1939 to enlist with the Duke of Wellington’s, a Yorkshire-based infantry regiment. He fought in Holland, France, North Africa, Italy, Palestine and Syria. He was awarded the Military Cross in Tunisia. He was wounded in North Africa and again when his company was in slit trenches at Anzio. He received further wounds when the Germans bombed the beachhead hospital while he was waiting to be evacuated. He made a full recovery and lived an active life, later sitting as a judge in London and Reading.

Pamela Faulks was the only daughter of Philip Lawless, MC. He had served in the Artists Rifles in the First World War and captained Richmond Rugby Club. He was capped once by England in the second row. He was a sports reporter for The Morning Post and the Daily Telegraph, specialising in rugby and golf, which he played off a handicap of plus two. In 1945, he was reporting on the American advance into Germany across the Rhine at Remagem and was killed by enemy fire.

‘I had a very happy childhood,’ said Faulks. ‘My parents were kind, humorous and affectionate. My brother Edward was a great companion. We only ever met one of our four grandparents. Two of them were dead and my mother was estranged from her own mother. There was a sense that everything was beginning again – a fresh start after the War. Edward and I were both obsessed by ball games, and in the summer we played cricket for about eight hours a days. I was shy, a loner, but quite content. I think the 1950s were a bit austere if you were grown up, but for a child it was a good time, with Hornby trains and Meccano (which I could never master). Then came the Beatles.’

Faulks’s mother introduced her sons to books at a young age. She also took them to the theatre and to galleries in London. ‘She had the full classical canon on vinyl and we absorbed all that, though we were much keener on pop music,’ said Faulks. ‘ “Pick of the Pops” with Alan Freeman on Sunday afternoons was sacred. Later on, Edward had a rock band at school. My father was into books only, I think, not music so much – he liked Trollope, Waugh, Graham Greene. My mother knew all of Dickens backwards. Those characters were real people to her.’

Both brothers were educated at Elstree School near Reading. ‘It was a demanding and old-fashioned school, and we both had to rise to the challenge,’ said Faulks. ‘I liked it very much; it was a formidable education.’ Faulks went as top scholar to Wellington College in 1966 and in 1970 won an open exhibition to read English at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He graduated in 1974, and was elected an Honorary Fellow in 2007.

In the year between school and university he had studied in Paris and learned to speak French. After university he spent a year in Bristol, writing a novel. ‘From the age of about fourteen, I had made up my mind. I was inspired by Dickens and D.H.Lawrence among others. I set my heart on being a novelist at that young age.’ At the end of the year, he migrated to London where he found work teaching in a private school in Camden Town.

After two years, he got a job running a small book club called the New Fiction Society which had been set up by the Arts Council to stimulate sales of literary fiction. He took over from the novelist David Hughes, who became a lifelong friend.

In 1979 Faulks joined the staff of the Daily Telegraph as the junior reporter on the diary column. ‘I was still writing books in the evening and at weekends,’ said Faulks, ‘but they weren’t much good.’ He had also been given work as freelance book reviewer, first at the Sunday Times, then at the Spectator and Books and Bookmen.

He and Edward had been sharing a house, but went their different ways. ‘I bought a small flat in Notting Hill,’ said Faulks. ‘I had no television and I was meant to just write at night. Eventually, at about the fourth attempt I wrote something publishable. I rang up a publisher called James Michie. I didn’t really know how distinguished James was; he was just someone I’d met at a party. But I later found out he’d published Graham Greene and discovered Sylvia Plath. After some humming and hah-ing he accepted the book, which I called A Trick of the Light.

I was twenty-nine. I got the news in a phone booth on Holborn Viaduct. It was a good moment; it felt like the beginning of something at last, after a long and occasionally dispiriting apprenticeship.’

Faulks worked as a feature writer for the Sunday Telegraph from 1983 to 1986, when he went to join the Independent as Literary Editor. ‘In its early days the Independent was a great place to be. We had such a good football team, apart from anything else. We won the Fleet Street league in our first year by beating the Sun in the last match.’

The Girl at the Lion d’Or came out in 1989. The Bodley Head had ceased to function but James Michie introduced Faulks to a literary agent, Gillon Aitken, who placed the book with Hutchinson, who have been Faulks’s publishers ever since. ‘I was fortunate,’ said Faulks, ‘to have three friends of an older literary generation, David Hughes, James Michie and Gillon Aitken.

Each provided encouragement in a different way.’ Although The Girl at the Lion d’Or was described by one paper as ‘the most raved-about new novel for years’, sales were modest and Faulks stayed with the Independent, becoming deputy editor of the Sunday paper when it launched in the same year. He left in 1991.

He subsequently wrote a monthly column for the Guardian, then for two years a weekly one in the Evening Standard and had a short spell as film reviewer for the Mail On Sunday. However, following the success of Birdsong, he has been able to focus his energies on books. ‘I haven’t had a proper job for years and would now be unemployable,’ he said in a 2005 interview.

In 1989, he married Veronica Youlten, formerly his assistant on the Independent books pages, later an editor at the Independent magazine. They have three children: William (born 1990), Holly (born 1992) and Arthur (born 1996). They spent a year in south west France, near Agen, in 1995-96, while Faulks was writing Charlotte Gray, but have lived in London since then.

Sebastian Faulks was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1993 and appointed CBE for services to literature in 2002. The Tavistock Clinic in association with the University of East London awarded him an honorary doctorate for his contribution to the understanding of psychiatry in Human Traces.

Edward Faulks read law at Oxford and has practised as a barrister in London since 1973. His practice, which is largely in the Appeal Court and the House of Lords, includes cases of professional negligence, clinical negligence, personal injury, education, police claims and claims arising from the Human Rights Act.

He took silk in 1996 and was for ten years head of chambers at 1, Chancery Lane

He married Catherine Turner in 1990, and they have two sons, Leo (born 1992) and Archie (born 1994).

Edward Faulks was created a life peer in July 2010 and took his seat as Lord Faulks of Donnington.

Videos
Books
Birdsong: A Novel of Love and War

Birdsong: A Novel of Love and War

FAQs
  • How do I book Sebastian Faulks to speak at my event?

    Our experienced booking agents have successfully helped clients around the world secure speakers like Sebastian Faulks for speaking engagements, personal appearances, product endorsements, or corporate entertainment since 2002. Click the Check Availability button above and complete the form on this page to check availability for Sebastian Faulks, or call our office at 1.800.698.2536 to discuss your upcoming event. One of our experienced agents will be happy to help you get speaking fee information and check availability for Sebastian Faulks or any other speaker of your choice.
  • What are the speaker fees for Sebastian Faulks

    Speaking fees for Sebastian Faulks, or any other speakers and celebrities, are determined based on a number of factors and may change without notice. The estimated fees to book Sebastian Faulks are available upon request for live events and available upon request for virtual events. For the most current speaking fee to hire Sebastian Faulks, click the Check Availability button above and complete the form on this page, or call our office at 1.800.698.2536 to speak directly with an experienced booking agent.
  • What topics does Sebastian Faulks speak about?

    Sebastian Faulks is a keynote speaker and industry expert whose speaking topics include Authors, Broadcasting, Business, Culture, Entertainers, Entertainment, Journalism.
  • Where does Sebastian Faulks travel from?

    Sebastian Faulks generally travels from UK, but can be booked for private corporate events, personal appearances, keynote speeches, or other performances. For more details, please contact an AAE Booking agent.
  • Who is Sebastian Faulks’s agent?

    AAE Speakers Bureau has successfully booked keynote speakers like Sebastian Faulks for clients worldwide since 2002. As a full-service speaker booking agency, we have access to virtually any speaker or celebrity in the world. Our agents are happy and able to submit an offer to the speaker or celebrity of your choice, letting you benefit from our reputation and long-standing relationships in the industry. Please click the Check Availability button above and complete the form on this page including the details of your event, or call our office at 1.800.698.2536, and one of our agents will assist you to book Sebastian Faulks for your next private or corporate function.
  • What is a full-service speaker booking agency?

    AAE Speakers Bureau is a full-service speaker booking agency, meaning we can completely manage the speaker’s or celebrity’s engagement with your organization from the time of booking your speaker through the event’s completion. We provide all of the services you need to host Sebastian Faulks or any other speaker of your choice, including offer negotiation, contractual assistance, accounting and billing, and event speaker travel and logistics services. When you book a speaker with us, we manage the process of hosting a speaker for you as an extension of your team. Our goal is to give our clients peace of mind and a best-in-class service experience when booking a speaker with us.
  • Why is AAE Speakers Bureau different from other booking agencies?

    If you’re looking for the best, unbiased speaker recommendations, paired with a top-notch customer service experience, you’re in the right place. At AAE Speakers Bureau, we exclusively represent the interests of our clients - professional organizations, companies, universities, and associations. We intentionally do not represent the speakers we feature or book. That is so we can present our clients with the broadest and best performing set of speaker options in the market today, and we can make these recommendations without any obligation to promote a specific speaker over another. This is why when our agents suggest a speaker for your event, you can be assured that they are of the highest quality with a history of proven success with our other clients.
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This website is a resource for event professionals and strives to provide the most comprehensive catalog of thought leaders and industry experts to consider for speaking engagements. A listing or profile on this website does not imply an agency affiliation or endorsement by the talent.

All American Entertainment (AAE) exclusively represents the interests of talent buyers, and does not claim to be the agency or management for any speaker or artist on this site. AAE is a talent booking agency for paid events only. We do not handle requests for donation of time or media requests for interviews, and cannot provide celebrity contact information.

If you are the talent and wish to request a profile update or removal from our online directory, please submit a profile request form.

Novelist, Journalist, and Broadcaster

Travels From:
UK
Speaking Fee:

Sebastian Faulks Biography

He is best known for his historical novels set in France — The Girl at the Lion d'Or, Birdsong, and Charlotte Gray.

Sebastian Faulks was born in Donnington, a village near Newbury in Berkshire on April 20, 1953. He was the younger son of Peter Faulks (1917-1998) and Pamela, née Lawless (1923-2003). Peter Faulks was a partner in the local law firm Pitman and Bazett. He had interrupted his legal training in 1939 to enlist with the Duke of Wellington’s, a Yorkshire-based infantry regiment. He fought in Holland, France, North Africa, Italy, Palestine and Syria. He was awarded the Military Cross in Tunisia. He was wounded in North Africa and again when his company was in slit trenches at Anzio. He received further wounds when the Germans bombed the beachhead hospital while he was waiting to be evacuated. He made a full recovery and lived an active life, later sitting as a judge in London and Reading.

Pamela Faulks was the only daughter of Philip Lawless, MC. He had served in the Artists Rifles in the First World War and captained Richmond Rugby Club. He was capped once by England in the second row. He was a sports reporter for The Morning Post and the Daily Telegraph, specialising in rugby and golf, which he played off a handicap of plus two. In 1945, he was reporting on the American advance into Germany across the Rhine at Remagem and was killed by enemy fire.

‘I had a very happy childhood,’ said Faulks. ‘My parents were kind, humorous and affectionate. My brother Edward was a great companion. We only ever met one of our four grandparents. Two of them were dead and my mother was estranged from her own mother. There was a sense that everything was beginning again – a fresh start after the War. Edward and I were both obsessed by ball games, and in the summer we played cricket for about eight hours a days. I was shy, a loner, but quite content. I think the 1950s were a bit austere if you were grown up, but for a child it was a good time, with Hornby trains and Meccano (which I could never master). Then came the Beatles.’

Faulks’s mother introduced her sons to books at a young age. She also took them to the theatre and to galleries in London. ‘She had the full classical canon on vinyl and we absorbed all that, though we were much keener on pop music,’ said Faulks. ‘ “Pick of the Pops” with Alan Freeman on Sunday afternoons was sacred. Later on, Edward had a rock band at school. My father was into books only, I think, not music so much – he liked Trollope, Waugh, Graham Greene. My mother knew all of Dickens backwards. Those characters were real people to her.’

Both brothers were educated at Elstree School near Reading. ‘It was a demanding and old-fashioned school, and we both had to rise to the challenge,’ said Faulks. ‘I liked it very much; it was a formidable education.’ Faulks went as top scholar to Wellington College in 1966 and in 1970 won an open exhibition to read English at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He graduated in 1974, and was elected an Honorary Fellow in 2007.

In the year between school and university he had studied in Paris and learned to speak French. After university he spent a year in Bristol, writing a novel. ‘From the age of about fourteen, I had made up my mind. I was inspired by Dickens and D.H.Lawrence among others. I set my heart on being a novelist at that young age.’ At the end of the year, he migrated to London where he found work teaching in a private school in Camden Town.

After two years, he got a job running a small book club called the New Fiction Society which had been set up by the Arts Council to stimulate sales of literary fiction. He took over from the novelist David Hughes, who became a lifelong friend.

In 1979 Faulks joined the staff of the Daily Telegraph as the junior reporter on the diary column. ‘I was still writing books in the evening and at weekends,’ said Faulks, ‘but they weren’t much good.’ He had also been given work as freelance book reviewer, first at the Sunday Times, then at the Spectator and Books and Bookmen.

He and Edward had been sharing a house, but went their different ways. ‘I bought a small flat in Notting Hill,’ said Faulks. ‘I had no television and I was meant to just write at night. Eventually, at about the fourth attempt I wrote something publishable. I rang up a publisher called James Michie. I didn’t really know how distinguished James was; he was just someone I’d met at a party. But I later found out he’d published Graham Greene and discovered Sylvia Plath. After some humming and hah-ing he accepted the book, which I called A Trick of the Light.

I was twenty-nine. I got the news in a phone booth on Holborn Viaduct. It was a good moment; it felt like the beginning of something at last, after a long and occasionally dispiriting apprenticeship.’

Faulks worked as a feature writer for the Sunday Telegraph from 1983 to 1986, when he went to join the Independent as Literary Editor. ‘In its early days the Independent was a great place to be. We had such a good football team, apart from anything else. We won the Fleet Street league in our first year by beating the Sun in the last match.’

The Girl at the Lion d’Or came out in 1989. The Bodley Head had ceased to function but James Michie introduced Faulks to a literary agent, Gillon Aitken, who placed the book with Hutchinson, who have been Faulks’s publishers ever since. ‘I was fortunate,’ said Faulks, ‘to have three friends of an older literary generation, David Hughes, James Michie and Gillon Aitken.

Each provided encouragement in a different way.’ Although The Girl at the Lion d’Or was described by one paper as ‘the most raved-about new novel for years’, sales were modest and Faulks stayed with the Independent, becoming deputy editor of the Sunday paper when it launched in the same year. He left in 1991.

He subsequently wrote a monthly column for the Guardian, then for two years a weekly one in the Evening Standard and had a short spell as film reviewer for the Mail On Sunday. However, following the success of Birdsong, he has been able to focus his energies on books. ‘I haven’t had a proper job for years and would now be unemployable,’ he said in a 2005 interview.

In 1989, he married Veronica Youlten, formerly his assistant on the Independent books pages, later an editor at the Independent magazine. They have three children: William (born 1990), Holly (born 1992) and Arthur (born 1996). They spent a year in south west France, near Agen, in 1995-96, while Faulks was writing Charlotte Gray, but have lived in London since then.

Sebastian Faulks was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1993 and appointed CBE for services to literature in 2002. The Tavistock Clinic in association with the University of East London awarded him an honorary doctorate for his contribution to the understanding of psychiatry in Human Traces.

Edward Faulks read law at Oxford and has practised as a barrister in London since 1973. His practice, which is largely in the Appeal Court and the House of Lords, includes cases of professional negligence, clinical negligence, personal injury, education, police claims and claims arising from the Human Rights Act.

He took silk in 1996 and was for ten years head of chambers at 1, Chancery Lane

He married Catherine Turner in 1990, and they have two sons, Leo (born 1992) and Archie (born 1994).

Edward Faulks was created a life peer in July 2010 and took his seat as Lord Faulks of Donnington.

Sebastian Faulks Videos

  • Sebastian Faulks introduces A Possible Life

Sebastian Faulks Books

FAQs on booking Sebastian Faulks

  • How do I book Sebastian Faulks to speak at my event?

    Our experienced booking agents have successfully helped clients around the world secure speakers like Sebastian Faulks for speaking engagements, personal appearances, product endorsements, or corporate entertainment since 2002. Click the Check Availability button above and complete the form on this page to check availability for Sebastian Faulks, or call our office at 1.800.698.2536 to discuss your upcoming event. One of our experienced agents will be happy to help you get speaking fee information and check availability for Sebastian Faulks or any other speaker of your choice.
  • What are the speaker fees for Sebastian Faulks

    Speaking fees for Sebastian Faulks, or any other speakers and celebrities, are determined based on a number of factors and may change without notice. The estimated fees to book Sebastian Faulks are available upon request for live events and available upon request for virtual events. For the most current speaking fee to hire Sebastian Faulks, click the Check Availability button above and complete the form on this page, or call our office at 1.800.698.2536 to speak directly with an experienced booking agent.
  • What topics does Sebastian Faulks speak about?

    Sebastian Faulks is a keynote speaker and industry expert whose speaking topics include Authors, Broadcasting, Business, Culture, Entertainers, Entertainment, Journalism.
  • Where does Sebastian Faulks travel from?

    Sebastian Faulks generally travels from UK, but can be booked for private corporate events, personal appearances, keynote speeches, or other performances. For more details, please contact an AAE Booking agent.
  • Who is Sebastian Faulks’s agent?

    AAE Speakers Bureau has successfully booked keynote speakers like Sebastian Faulks for clients worldwide since 2002. As a full-service speaker booking agency, we have access to virtually any speaker or celebrity in the world. Our agents are happy and able to submit an offer to the speaker or celebrity of your choice, letting you benefit from our reputation and long-standing relationships in the industry. Please click the Check Availability button above and complete the form on this page including the details of your event, or call our office at 1.800.698.2536, and one of our agents will assist you to book Sebastian Faulks for your next private or corporate function.
  • What is a full-service speaker booking agency?

    AAE Speakers Bureau is a full-service speaker booking agency, meaning we can completely manage the speaker’s or celebrity’s engagement with your organization from the time of booking your speaker through the event’s completion. We provide all of the services you need to host Sebastian Faulks or any other speaker of your choice, including offer negotiation, contractual assistance, accounting and billing, and event speaker travel and logistics services. When you book a speaker with us, we manage the process of hosting a speaker for you as an extension of your team. Our goal is to give our clients peace of mind and a best-in-class service experience when booking a speaker with us.
  • Why is AAE Speakers Bureau different from other booking agencies?

    If you’re looking for the best, unbiased speaker recommendations, paired with a top-notch customer service experience, you’re in the right place. At AAE Speakers Bureau, we exclusively represent the interests of our clients - professional organizations, companies, universities, and associations. We intentionally do not represent the speakers we feature or book. That is so we can present our clients with the broadest and best performing set of speaker options in the market today, and we can make these recommendations without any obligation to promote a specific speaker over another. This is why when our agents suggest a speaker for your event, you can be assured that they are of the highest quality with a history of proven success with our other clients.

Sebastian Faulks is a keynote speaker and industry expert who speaks on a wide range of topics . The estimated speaking fee range to book Sebastian Faulks for your event is available upon request. Sebastian Faulks generally travels from UK and can be booked for (private) corporate events, personal appearances, keynote speeches, or other performances. Similar motivational celebrity speakers are Jeffrey Kluger, Simon Lovell, Mark Seal, Joyce Maynard and Rinker Buck. Contact All American Speakers for ratings, reviews, videos and information on scheduling Sebastian Faulks for an upcoming live or virtual event.

Sebastian Faulks Speaker Videos

  • Sebastian Faulks introduces A Possible Life

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Speakers Similar to Sebastian Faulks

This website is a resource for event professionals and strives to provide the most comprehensive catalog of thought leaders and industry experts to consider for speaking engagements. A listing or profile on this website does not imply an agency affiliation or endorsement by the talent.

All American Entertainment (AAE) exclusively represents the interests of talent buyers, and does not claim to be the agency or management for any speaker or artist on this site. AAE is a talent booking agency for paid events only. We do not handle requests for donation of time or media requests for interviews, and cannot provide celebrity contact information.

If you are the talent and wish to request a profile update or removal from our online directory, please submit a profile request form.

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