Jenni Fagan is a Scottish novelist. She has written three fiction novels, including ''The Panopticon, five books of poetry + stage and screenplays.
Early Life
Fagan was born in 1977 and grew up in Scotland within the Scottish Local Authority care system. She is said to have moved 37 times by the age of sixteen, had two adoptions, neither of which worked out. After leaving care she went onto spend several years in homeless accommodation. Over her late teens and twenties Fagan performed poetry and was a singer in punk and grunge bands. In 2007 she received the Dewar Arts award which enabled her to attend Norwich School of Art and Design and go on to read for a BA at University of Greenwich from which she graduated first class. She went on to study for a MA at Royal Holloway, University of London where she was taught by Andrew Motion. She completed a PhD at The University of Edinburgh, her thesis is on Structuralism.
Career
With the publication of her first novel in 2013, Fagan was listed by Granta as one of the 2013 Granta Best of Young British Novelists. The Panopticon was well received in the press, with New York Times describing her writing, "...there is no resisting the tidal rollout of Fagan’s imagery. Her prose beats behind your eyelids..." and also describing Fagan as The Patron Saint of Literary Street Urchins. " Her second novel, The Sunlight Pilgrims released in 2016, tells the story of a transgender young girl named Stella who lives on a caravan park and is based around the relationships she forms while growing up, set against a backdrop of rural Scotland during a period freezing climate change. Writer Hannah McGill described it as "Confirms her as a stupendously gifted & important voice…This writer is great on love, lust…sensory detail & on vivid characterisation. You live in her world and feel reluctant – despite its problems – to leave it." Fagan was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award in 2017 with The Waken. She has previously been on lists such as Dublin Impac, Sunday Times Short Story Prize, James Tait Black, Encore Award, with two nominations for the Pushcart Prize. Fagan's work has subsequently been translated into eight languages with both of her novels featured on the front cover of The New York Times Book Review. Fagan regularly mentors young writers, and works with young people including offenders and those in the prison system. She curated an art exhibition at Tramway in Glasgow entitled Narrative for Koestler Trust in 2017. It showcased artwork by prisoners, young offenders and those in secure psychiatric care from all across Scotland. In 2017, as part of the Edinburgh International Book Festival, Fagan and 4 other Scottish writers took part in the Outriders Project, which involved taking road trips across the continent of America with local writers to explore partnerships while writing and blogging throughout the journey. Fagan's journey entailed travelling from the Rust Belt to Silicon Valley where she explored "questions on the nature of truth." She was accompanied by American novelist Bonnie Jo Campbell. The subsequent book length poem called TRUTH was published by Tangerine Press in Autumn 2019. It was during a writing residency at Shakespeare and Company in Paris she wrote some of the poetry which made up her poetry collection There’s a Witch in the Word Machine. Fagan reads all of her work at Shakespeare & Company and cites Paris as a place where she feels at home. She has been Writer in Residence at the University of Edinburgh, Lewisham Hospital's neonatal unit, Norfolk Blind Association, and has collaborated with a women's prison and various youth organisations over many years. She was a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellow at Grez-sur-Loing for a month in 2018 supported by The Scottish Book Trust. Fagan recently completed the Gavin Wallace Writing Fellowship at Summerhall, which she held for a year. During her residency she wrote a poetry collection called The Bone Library, created poetry installations of her work which are in gold lettering around the building and she spent two months engraving poetry onto animal bones, these are displayed in Summerhall. She directed her first short film in 2018, a cine-poem about Bangour Village Hospital where she was born. She has also experimented with other media such as sculpture, when she created a giant metal scold's bridle onto which she engraved words by women prisoners from the UK and USA, including submissions from women on death row. The Panopticon was adapted for National Theatre Scotland to a sold out run at the Traverse Theatre in Autumn 2019, Directed by Debbie Hannan. Fagan wrote the stage play and she has written the screenplay for The Panopticon as well. The Panopticon is anticipated to go on tour in 2021. Fagan's third fiction novel The Luckenbooth will be published in January, 2021.
