1. Jonathan Coe's work has an underlying preoccupation with political issues, although this serious engagement is often expressed comically in the form of satire.
23 Facts About Jonathan Coe
1. 2.
Jonathan Coe studied at King Edward's School, Birmingham, and Trinity College, Cambridge.
3.
Jonathan Coe taught at the University of Warwick, where he completed an MA and PhD in English Literature.
4.
Jonathan Coe has long been interested in both music and literature.
5.
Jonathan Coe wrote songs and played keyboards for a short-lived feminist cabaret group, Wanda and the Willy Warmers.
6.
Jonathan Coe published his first novel, The Accidental Woman, in 1987.
7.
Jonathan Coe has written a short children's adaptation of Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift, and a children's story called The Broken Mirror.
8.
Jonathan Coe was a judge for the Booker Prize in 1996 and has been a jury member at the Venice Film Festival and the Edinburgh Film Festival in 2007.
9.
In 2012 Jonathan Coe was invited by Javier Marias to become a duke of the kingdom of Redonda.
10.
Jonathan Coe chose as his title "Duke of Prunes", after a favourite piece of music by Frank Zappa.
11.
Jonathan Coe read an excerpt of The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim to crowds at the Latitude Festival in July 2009.
12.
The Dwarves of Death was filmed as Five Seconds to Spare in 1999, for which Jonathan Coe himself co-wrote the screenplay.
13.
Jonathan Coe played music for years and tried to find a record label as a performer before becoming a published novelist.
14.
Jonathan Coe has contributed to the liner notes for that band's archival release Hatwise Choice.
15.
Jonathan Coe wrote the sleevenotes "Reflections on The High Llamas" for the 2003 compilation of The High Llamas Retrospective, Rarities and Instrumentals.
16.
Jonathan Coe has written lyrics for songs on the albums My Favourite Part of You and The Wonder of It All by Louis Philippe, and Earth to Ether by Theo Travis, for which the vocalist was Richard Sinclair.
17.
In 2008 Jonathan Coe wrote Say Hi to the Rivers and the Mountains, a 60-minute piece of what he calls "spoken musical theatre", with dialogue to be delivered continuously by three actors over a sequence of songs and instrumentals by The High Llamas.
18.
Jonathan Coe married Janine McKeown in 1989, and they have two daughters born in 1997 and 2000.
19.
In 2009, Jonathan Coe took part in Oxfam's first annual book festival, "Bookfest".
20.
Jonathan Coe chose books by or about Michael Moore, Bill Hicks, Peter Cook and Steve Bell.
21.
Jonathan Coe unearthed a script of Terry Gilliam's film Brazil.
22.
Jonathan Coe donated a story to Oxfam's "Ox-Tales" project, four collections of UK stories written by 38 authors.
23.
Jonathan Coe is a trustee of the charity Cleared Ground Demining, and in spring 2007 visited Guinea-Bissau to write an article about their operations there.