Carl Shuker

CARL SHUKER was born R. Carl Shuker, youngest of three children. The video for the Manic Street Preachers’ MOTORCYCLE EMPTINESS, shot in Tokyo and Yokohama, was my first sight of contemporary Japan.

I started and abandoned a degree in mathematics and law, and took work on the late shift in a maternity hospital laundry before completing a degree in English literature. After graduating I moved to Tokyo where I lived for the next eighteen months.

In 2001 I began a Master of Arts at Victoria University’s school of creative writing, the International Institute of Modern Letters, where I studied under Book Award winner and inaugural poet laureate Bill Manhire. THE METHOD ACTORS was begun there, drawing on Tokyo and extensive historical research, and would take a further two and a half years to complete.

I returned to Tokyo in 2004, THE METHOD ACTORS was published in 2005 and in 2006 won the Prize in Modern Letters, the world’s richest prize for an emerging author. In 2006 THE LAZY BOYS was published.

Since May 2006 I'm living and writing in London. I am writing a screenplay for the feature film of THE LAZY BOYS with funding from the New Zealand Film Commission, to be directed by Brendan Donovan and produced by Michael Wrenn. I'm also researching a new novel.

Reviews

The Crown and the Crowd Profile of Martin Amis circa HOUSE OF MEETINGS for Poets and Writers magazine Jan/Feb 2007 (hosted here and transcribed, I think, errors and all, by the Martin Amis web)

A Performance Beyond Words: Rinko Kikuchi, BABEL and the 59th Cannes International Film Festival - a bit of fluff I wrote to offset cripplling Cannes bills for THE JAPAN TIMES

Ferocious Appetites OBLIVION by David Foster Wallace
The Tyrant of Cool YELLOW DOG by Martin Amis
Always Crashing in the Same Car MILLENNIUM PEOPLE by J.G. Ballard

Note to Self DR MUKTI AND OTHER TALES OF WOE by Will Self

Announcing the Arrival of King Kong CLOUD ATLAS by David Mitchell