# Sarah Hall (writer)

Sarah Hall FRSL (born 1974) is an English novelist and short story writer. Her critically acclaimed second novel, The Electric Michelangelo, was nominated for the 2004 Man Booker Prize. She lives in Cumbria.

## Biography

Hall was born in Carlisle, Cumbria. She obtained a degree in English and Art History from Aberystwyth University before taking an MLitt in Creative Writing at the University of St Andrews, where she briefly taught on the undergraduate Creative Writing programme. She still teaches creative writing, regularly giving courses for the Arvon Foundation. She began her writing career as a poet, publishing poems in various literary magazines.
Her debut novel, Haweswater, is a rural tragedy about the disintegration of a community of Cumbrian hill-farmers due to the building of Haweswater Reservoir. It won the 2003 Commonwealth Writers' Prize (Overall Winner, Best First Book).
Her second novel, The Electric Michelangelo, set in early twentieth-century Morecambe Bay and Coney Island, is the biography of a fictional tattoo artist. The novel was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2004, and she was again nominated for the Commonwealth Writers Prize in 2005. In France, it was shortlisted for the Prix Femina étranger 2004.
Her third novel, The Carhullan Army, won the 2007 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and the James Tiptree, Jr. Award, and it was shortlisted for the 2008 Arthur C. Clarke Award. In America, the novel was published under the title Daughters of the North.
Her 2009 novel How to Paint a Dead Man was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize.
In 2013, she was included in the Granta list of 20 best young British novelists. In October 2013, she won the BBC National Short Story Award for "Mrs Fox". She won for a second time in 2020 for her story "The Grotesques".
In 2016, Hall was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. In 2024, she was made an honorary Doctor of Letters by Lancaster University, for outstanding contribution to literature. She is currently Professor of Creative Writing at Manchester University.
All her novels are published by Faber & Faber. Sarah Hall has lived both in the United Kingdom and in North Carolina.
Hall is a patron of Humanists UK.

## Awards

| Year | Title | Award | Category | Result |
| 2003 | Haweswater | Betty Trask Prize and Awards | Betty Trask Award | Won |
| 2003 | Haweswater | Commonwealth Writers' Prize | Overall Best First Book | Won |
| 2004 | The Electric Michelangelo | Man Booker Prize | — | Shortlisted |
| 2004 | The Electric Michelangelo | Orange Prize for Fiction | — | Longlisted |
| 2007 | The Carhullan Army | James Tiptree Jr. Award | — | Won |
| 2007 | The Carhullan Army | John Llewellyn Rhys Prize | — | Won |
| 2008 | The Carhullan Army | Arthur C. Clarke Award | — | Shortlisted |
| 2009 | The Carhullan Army | International Dublin Literary Award | | Longlisted |
| 2009 | How to Paint a Dead Man | Man Booker Prize | — | Longlisted |
| 2010 | How to Paint a Dead Man | Portico Prize | Fiction | Won |
| 2012 | The Beautiful Indifference: Stories | Edge Hill Short Story Prize | — | Won |
| 2012 | The Beautiful Indifference: Stories | Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award | — | Shortlisted |
| 2012 | The Beautiful Indifference: Stories | Portico Prize | Fiction | Won |
| 2013 | "Mrs Fox" | BBC National Short Story Award | — | Won |
| 2015 | The Wolf Border | James Tait Black Memorial Prize | Fiction | Shortlisted |
| 2017 | Madame Zero: 9 Stories | East Anglian Book Awards | Fiction | Won |
| 2018 | Madame Zero: 9 Stories | Edge Hill Short Story Prize | — | Shortlisted |
| 2021 | Burntcoat | National Book Critics Circle Award | Fiction | Finalist |
| 2023 | Burntcoat | International Dublin Literary Award | — | Longlisted |