David Mitchell - A Versatile Contemporary Writer

There are many writers in the universe who are exceptionally well in analyzing the historical facts and narrate it. Many writers are very skilled in anticipating the future and write it in their typical style, but only very few writers can able to write on both and David Mitchell is one among them. David Stephen Mitchell was born in England on January 12, 1969, he is one among the successful novelist of the present era. Mitchell is an author of seven prosperous novels and two of them were shortlisted for The Booker Prize. And his very recent work "From Me Flows What You Call Time" will be published in the year of 2114. He is a man of past, present and future. 

Mitchell's Works

• Ghost Written(1999)
• number9dream (2001)
• Cloud Atlas(2004)
• Black Swan Green(2006)
• The Thousand Autumn of Jacob De Zoet(2010)
• The Bone Clocks(2014)
• Slade House(2015)

           

Ghost written

This novel was written in an unique style and thoughts of Mitchell. The book is about nine parts of the world and the people who live in it. Each section is a new plot with a central character and also about few fellow humans and the beauty of this novel is having a connectivity among those nine different places in the world. David Mitchell introduced a new theory of coincidence and inter-connectivity to fictions. A well-structured book speaks about almost every problem and complications of the human kind.  

number9dream

number9dream has been shortlisted for the Booker prize, this plot is about a young nineteen year old boy Eiji, who search his father and also mourns for the death of his twin sister. It presents the complexity of understanding the identity and imaginative journey of one's own life. “Number9Dream, with its propulsive energy, its Joycean eruption of language and playfulness, represents further confirmation that David Mitchell should be counted among the top young novelists working today.”—San Francisco Chronicle

Cloud Atlas

Mitchell has showed his extra-ordinary excellence in this novel. This books has been adopted into movie and succeed as well. It has won British Book Award and shortlisted to Booker Prize in the year 2004. Six different stories in the six different period of time has been presented simultaneously with a deep connectivity. The book has been started in nineteenth century and traveled to the post-apocalyptic future. “Cloud Atlas ought to make [Mitchell] famous on both sides of the Atlantic as a writer whose fearlessness is matched by his talent.”—The Washington Post Book World

Black Swan Green

This book is a semi-autobiographical novel of Mitchell, it has 13 sections each one is the happenings of every month from January 1982 to January 1983, the story has been written in the perspective of 13 year old boy. This book has been long-listed for the Booker prize in 2006. “[David Mitchell is a] prodigiously daring and imaginative young writer. . . . As in the works of Thomas Pynchon and Herman Melville, one feels the roof of the narrative lifted off and oneself in thrall.”—Time

The Thousand Autumn of Jacob De Zoet

The Thousand Autumn of Jacob De Zoet is a historical novel of Japan. During the Dutch Trading with Japan and he described the state of the country and the measures taken by them inorder to protect themselves from the outsiders of Japan. Mitchell explains the pain and pleasure of the man in the Age of Exploration. “By any standards, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is a formidable marvel.”—James Wood, The New Yorker

The Bone Clocks

David Mitchell's sixth book, this book has won World Fantasy Award in 2015. This title refers to the immortality of the characters in the book that compared with the normal mortal bones of humans. This story is about a woman who has an invisible eye and the war between two immortals. “Intensely compelling . . . fantastically witty . . . offers up a rich selection of domestic realism, gothic fantasy and apocalyptic speculation.”—The Washington Post

Slade House

Each Mitchell's novel has a specific and unique elements, Slade House is also one of its kind. This novel is a collection of twitts in Twitter by Mitchell himself. The plot starts in seventeenth century and ends up to the present year which means 2015 and its about a mysterious slade house. “Diabolically entertaining . . . dark, thrilling, and fun . . . a thoroughly entertaining ride full of mind games, unexpected twists, and even a few laughs.”—The Daily Beast

Other Works - Short stories

• "January Man", Granta 81: Best of Young British Novelists, Spring 2003
• "What You Do Not Know You Want", McSweeney's Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories, Vintage Books (Random House), 2004
• "Acknowledgments", Prospect, 2005
• "Preface", The Daily Telegraph, April 2006
• "Dénouement", The Guardian, May 2007
• "Judith Castle", New York Times, January 2008
• "An Inside Job", Included in "Fighting Words", edited by Roddy Doyle, published by Stoney Road Press, 2009 (Limited to 150 copies)
• "The Massive Rat", The Guardian, August 2009
• "Character Development", The Guardian, September 2009
• "Muggins Here", The Guardian, August 2010
• "Earth calling Taylor", Financial Times, December 2010
• "The Siphoners", Included in "I’m With the Bears: Short Stories from a Damaged Planet", 2011
• "The Gardener", in the exhibit "The Flower Show" by Kai and Sunny, 2011 (Limited to 50 copies)
• "Lots of Bits of Star", in the exhibit "Caught by the Nest" by Kai and Sunny, 2013 (Limited to 50 copies)
• "Variations on a Theme by Mister Donut", Granta 127: Japan, Spring 2014
• "The Right Sort", Twitter, 2014

DM's Quotes 

“My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?” 

“A half-read book is a half-finished love affair.”

“I believe there is another world waiting for us. A better world. And I'll be waiting for you there.” 

“Travel far enough, you meet yourself.” 

“A book you finish reading is not the same book it was before you read it.” 

“Whoever opined "Money can't buy you happiness" obviously had far too much of the stuff.” 

“We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love.” 

“One fine day a predatory world shall consume itself.” 

“By each crime and every kindness, we birth our future.” 

“Writing is such a damn lonely sickness.” 

“Lying's wrong, but when the world spins backwards, a small wrong may be a big right.”