Jonathan Raban (1942 – 2023)

He was the author of over a dozen books, both fiction and non-fiction, including Passage to Juneau, Bad Land, Hunting Mister Heartbreak, Coasting, Old Glory, Arabia, Soft City, Waxwings and Surveillance. His awards included the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Royal Society of Literature’s Heinemann Award, the Thomas Cook Award, the PEN West Creative Nonfiction Award, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers’ Award, and the Governor’s Award of the State of Washington. His work appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, Harpers, The New York Review of Books, Outside, Atlantic Monthly, New Republic, The London Review of Books, and other magazines.

In 1990 Raban, a British citizen, moved from London to Seattle, where he lived with his daughter, Julia. Picador will publish Raban’s memoir, Father and Son, in September 2023.

‘Jonathan Raban was a beloved Picador author and we are immensely proud to have been his publishers over so many years and so many wonderful books. He was that rare sort of writer who could write about himself and about the world he travelled through with equal precision, honesty, humour and great beauty. His death is a great loss for us all.’

Mary Mount, Picador Publisher

‘After Jonathan had a stroke a doctor in the hospital said “You’re the one who used to be a writer.” Jonathan replied “I very much hope that I’m still a writer.” And so he was to the very end, completing his memoir shortly before his health began to fail. The day before he died, he dictated an email to his daughter Julia to go out to all his friends. And even though he knew he was facing the end, he bid us all farewell in perfectly judged sentences and paragraphs.’

Clare Alexander, Jonathan's agent

For further information please contact Emma Bravo at emma.bravo@macmillan.com