Toby Litt

Toby Litt is an English writer of short stories, novels and diaries. He is best known for writing his books — from Adventures in Capitalism to Patience — in alphabetical order (except for non-fiction ones).

Toby Litt was born in Bedfordshire, England. He read English at Worcester College, Oxford, and studied Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, where he was taught by Malcolm Bradbury, winning the 1995 Curtis Brown Fellowship.

Litt published his first book, a collection of short stories entitled Adventures in Capitalism, in 1996. His novels include Beatniks: An English Road Movie (1997), a modern On the Road set in middle England, Corpsing (2000), a thriller set in London's Soho, and Deadkidsongs (2001).

In 2002, Exhibitionism, his collection of short stories, explores the boundaries of sex and sexuality. Other works are also included in the anthology All Hail the New Puritans (2000), edited by Matt Thorne and Nicholas Blincoe, and he has edited The Outcry (2001).

Finding Myself (2003) is the story of what happens when budding author Victoria About gathers together ten friends for an all-expenses-paid holiday in Southwold to write up the ensuing events.

In 2003, Granta magazine nominated Toby Litt for a Best of Young British Novelist award.

In 2014, his first opera collaboration, Vastation (Nichtung), with music by Samy Moussa, was performed in Munich and Regensburg.

Also in 2014, Toby wrote a monthly comic — Dead Boy Detectives — based on characters from Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. The Dead Boy Detectives TV series, featuring Toby and Mark Buckingham’s character Crystal Palace, is now in production for HBO Max.

Patience, his latest novel, was published by Galley Beggar Press in 2019. It was shortlisted for the Republic of Consciousness Prize.

Toby Litt lives in London. He is a member of the English PEN club and a reader in Creative Writing at Birkbeck College.

Photo credit: tobylitt.wordpress.com