David Malcolm Storey (13th July, 1933 – 27th March, 2017) was an English playwright, screenwriter, and award-winning novelist (not to mention professional rugby league player).
Born in Wakefield in the West Riding of Yorkshire, Storey was the son of a coal miner. Educated at QEGS Wakefield he then went on to London’s Slade School of Fine Arts, where he supported his studied by playing rugby league for Leeds RLFC.
In 1960 David Storey published his first novel, This Sporting Life, which was adapted for film in 1963, the novel also won him his first literary award, the MacMillan Fiction Award in 1960. A prolific author he would published seven more works in the next decade and continue writing until 2004 with 25 published works to his name in his life.
Storey’s next literary award would come soon after the first when in 1961 he won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for Flight into Camden, then in 1963 he was awarded the Somerset Maugham Award before following that up in 1973 when he was awarded the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize for Pasmore. In 1976 he would collect the coveted Booker Prize for Saville, possibly his best known novel.
In addition to his novels he wrote plays which include The Restoration of Arnold Middleton, The Changing Room, Cromwell, Home, and Stages.
In 1956 Storey married Barbara Rudd Hamilton, with whom he had four children. His wife died in 2015, and two years later his own death came with the cause given as Parkinson’s disease and dementia. He left behind two sons, two daughters, and six grandchildren.
Below are the novels featured in this piece.
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