J.G. Farrell

1935–1979

English-born novelist of Irish descent, best known for the Empire Trilogy on the decline of British colonial rule. Born in Liverpool, he was educated at Rossall School and Brasenose College, Oxford, where he contracted polio, an experience later reflected in The Lung (1965). His novel Troubles (1970) won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and, in 2010, the Lost Man Booker Prize. The Singapore Grip (1978) completed the trilogy. Farrell moved to County Cork in 1979 and drowned in Bantry Bay that August, aged 44. The Siege of Krishnapur, set during the Indian Rebellion of 1857, won the 1973 Booker Prize.

Timeline of J.G. Farrell’s life

Works

• The Siege of Krishnapur (1973)

Prizes

• The Siege of Krishnapur — The Booker Prize 1973: Winner, Shortlist