Nigel Cliff
Born (1969-12-26) 26 December 1969
Manchester, England
EducationWinchester College
Harris Manchester College, Oxford
Occupations
  • Historian
  • biographer
  • translator
  • columnist
Spouse
​
(m. 2009)​
Children1 son

Nigel Cliff (born 26 December 1969) is a British biographer, historian, translator and critic. In 2022 Oxford University awarded Cliff the degree of Doctor of Letters in recognition of a body of work of international importance.[1]

Biography

Born in Manchester, Cliff was educated on scholarships at Winchester College and Harris Manchester College, Oxford University, where he gained a first-class degree and was awarded the Beddington Prize for English Literature.[2] He has been a film and theatre critic for The Times, a contributor to The Economist,[3] a columnist for Dajia, the online magazine of Tencent,[4] and a reviewer for The New York Times Book Review.[5] Cliff has lectured at Oxford University,[6] the Harry Ransom Center[7] and the British Library[8] and is a regular guest on television and radio programmes including Start the Week[9] and MSNBC's Morning Joe.[10] He was a fellow of Harris Manchester College, Oxford, from 2016 to 2021 and a Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund from 2017 to 2019.[11] He also runs a ballet company[12] and has produced shows for the Barbican Centre and the Bolshoi Theatre.[13]

Career

Cliff's first book, The Shakespeare Riots: Revenge, Drama, and Death in Nineteenth-century America, was published in the United States by Random House in 2007. Centring on a feud between leading Shakespearean actors William Charles Macready and Edwin Forrest that led to the deadly Astor Place Riot of 1849, it dramatises the birth of a distinctly American entertainment industry and demonstrates the centrality of Shakespeare to nineteenth-century American identity.

Writing in the London Review of Books, Michael Dobson called the book 'wonderful... a brilliant debut... both enthralling and scholarly."[14] In the Los Angeles Times, Phillip Lopate called it 'Brilliantly engrossing... exemplary... engaging, worldly, fluent... crammed with entertaining nuggets.'.[15] The book was a Washington Post Book of the Year[16] and was a finalist for the National Award for Arts Writing.[17] Cliff wrote the adapted screenplay for Muse Productions.[18]

Cliff's second book was Holy War: How Vasco da Gama's Epic Voyages Turned the Tide in a Centuries-old Clash of Civilisations (Harper, 2011).[19] It was subsequently issued as The Last Crusade: The Epic Voyages of Vasco da Gama by Harper Perennial in 2012.[20] The book was published under the latter name by Atlantic in the UK[21] and under the former name in Portugal, Brazil, Japan, Russia, Turkey, Poland, China and Taiwan.[22] The book was a New York Times Notable Book[23] and was shortlisted for the PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize[24] and the Mountbatten Award.[25] In the New York Times Eric Ormsby wrote: "Cliff has a novelist's gift for depicting character."[26] In The Sunday Times James McConnachie called the book 'stirringly epic...[a] thrilling narrative."[27]

Cliff's third book was a new translation and critical edition of Marco Polo's Travels for Penguin Classics, which was released in the UK and U.S. in 2015. For this first all-new translation in a half-century, he went back to the original texts in French, Latin and Italian.[28]

Cliff's fourth book, Moscow Nights: The Van Cliburn Story - How One Man and His Piano Transformed the Cold War, was published by Harper in September 2016[29] and subsequently in multiple translations. The Boston Globe named it a Book of the Year. In January 2017 it was named a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.[30] The book won Nautilus Gold And Silver Awards.[31]

Personal life

Cliff married the ballerina Viviana Durante in June 2009.[32] They have a son, and live in London.[33]

Books

  • Cliff, Nigel (2007). The Shakespeare Riots: Revenge, Drama, and Death in Nineteenth-Century America. New York: Random House. ISBN 9780345486943.
  • Cliff, Nigel (2011). Holy War: How Vasco da Gama's Epic Voyages Turned the Tide in a Centuries-Old Clash of Civilizations. New York: Harper. ISBN 9780061735127.
  • Cliff, Nigel (2012). The Last Crusade: The Epic Voyages of Vasco da Gama. New York: Harper Perennial. ISBN 9780061735134.
  • Cliff, Nigel (2015). Marco Polo, The Travels. London: Penguin Classics. ISBN 978-0141198774.
  • Cliff, Nigel (2016). Moscow Nights: The Van Cliburn Story - How One Man and His Piano Transformed the Cold War.

References

  1. ↑ Cliff, Nigel. "About Nigel". Nigel Cliff. Retrieved 17 June 2022.
  2. ↑ "Oxford University Gazette" (4372). 27 July 1995. Retrieved 13 June 2016. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  3. ↑ "Holy War". Harpercollins publishers llc.
  4. ↑ "Nigel Cliff". Retrieved 28 March 2018.
  5. ↑ "The New York Times - Search". New York Times. Retrieved 8 November 2021.
  6. ↑ "Kellogg College Creative Writing Seminar Series". 19 September 2015. Retrieved 13 June 2016.
  7. ↑ Telling, Kathleen. "Bardolatry reaches fever pitch in Nigel Cliff's The Shakespeare Riots". Cultural Compass. Retrieved 13 June 2016.
  8. ↑ "Dying for Shakespeare". The British Library. Retrieved 13 June 2016.
  9. ↑ "BBC Radio 4 - Start the Week, the Bolshoi and Culture Wars". bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 8 November 2021.
  10. ↑ "The history of pianist van Cliburn and his impact on U.S.-Russia relations". MSNBC. Retrieved 8 November 2021.
  11. ↑ "Nigel Cliff". Royal Literary Fund. Retrieved 28 March 2018.
  12. ↑ "Trustees | Viviana Durante Official Website". Viviana Durante. Retrieved 8 November 2021.
  13. ↑ "DANCE INVERSION. International Contemporary Dance Festival". DanceInversion. Retrieved 8 November 2021.
  14. ↑ Dobson, Michael (2 August 2007). "Let him be Caesar!". London Review of Books. 29 (15).
  15. ↑ Lopate, Phillip (15 April 2007). "What fools these mortals be". Los Angeles Times.
  16. ↑ "Book World's Holiday Issue". The Washington Post. 2 December 2007.
  17. ↑ "2007 Marfield Prize". Arts Club of Washington. Retrieved 13 June 2016.
  18. ↑ Goodridge, Mike (15 May 2011). "Muse lines up slate of hot literary adaptations". Screen International. Retrieved 14 June 2016.
  19. ↑ "Holy War". Harpercollins publishers llc. Retrieved 13 June 2016.
  20. ↑ "The Last Crusade". Harpercollins publishers llc. Retrieved 13 June 2016.
  21. ↑ "Book of the Week". Atlantic books. Archived from the original on 13 July 2016. Retrieved 13 June 2016.
  22. ↑ "Nigel Cliff official website". Retrieved 13 June 2016.
  23. ↑ "100 Notable Books of 2011". The New York Times. 21 November 2011. Retrieved 13 June 2016.
  24. ↑ "English PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History 2013 shortlist announced". English PEN. Retrieved 13 June 2016.
  25. ↑ "Maritime Media Awards 2012 - Maritime Foundation". Maritime Foundation. Retrieved 8 November 2021.
  26. ↑ Ormsby, Eric (9 September 2011). "Why Vasco da Gama Went to India". The New York Times. Retrieved 13 June 2016.
  27. ↑ McConnachie, James (1 April 2012). "The Last Crusade". Sunday Times. Archived from the original on 19 April 2013. Retrieved 13 June 2016.
  28. ↑ The Travels. Retrieved 15 November 2016. {{cite book}}: |website= ignored (help)
  29. ↑ "Moscow Nights". Harpercollins publishers llc. Retrieved 13 June 2016.
  30. ↑ Alter, Alexandra (17 January 2017). "Zadie Smith and Michael Chabon Among National Book Critics Circle Finalists". New York Times. Retrieved 27 January 2017.
  31. ↑ "Nautilus Awards" (PDF). Nautilus Award Winners. Archived from the original (PDF) on 30 October 2017. Retrieved 4 May 2017.
  32. ↑ "Birthdays: Viviana Durante". The Times. 8 May 2010. Retrieved 22 December 2019.
  33. ↑ Parry, Jann (8 November 2016). "Interview – Viviana Durante: Ballerina, mother, teacher and coach of MacMillan's Anastasia". DanceTabs. Retrieved 22 December 2019.
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