Joe Dunthorne
Poet, Novelist
About
Joe Dunthorne is a poet and novelist. His debut novel, Submarine, was translated into fifteen languages and made into an award-winning film, directed by Richard Ayoade. His second novel, Wild Abandon, won the Royal Society of Literature’s Encore award in 2012. His third novel, The Adulterants, was translated into four languages and an extract was published in the Paris Review. His debut poetry collection, O Positive, was published by Faber & Faber in 2019. In 2025, he published his first work of nonfiction, Children of Radium – a family history about his great-grandfather, a German-Jewish chemist who made radioactive toothpaste – which Joe also adapted and presented as a BBC podcast.
Joe has a Creative Writing MA with distinction from the University of East Anglia, where he has also taught on both the MA and MFA courses. As a journalist, he writes regularly for the London Review of Books, Esquire and the Guardian. His short fiction has been published in McSweeney’s and Granta and has been twice shortlisted for the Sunday Times Short Story award. In 2022, Joe’s radio documentary, Thanks for your Letter, won the grand prix for short form work at the International Festival Prix Marulić.
Joe co-hosts Stress Test, a regular show on Soho Radio, in which poets write and read poems under timed conditions. He also sometimes plays in defence for the England writers’ football team. He was born and brought up in Swansea and now lives in London.