Acclaimed novelist Jonathan Coe will receive an honorary degree from the University of Birmingham on Friday 14th July at 10.30am.

Born in Birmingham in 1961, his first ambition was to become a musician, and for a while he wrote music for jazz and cabaret groups.

He then went on to become a freelance writer and journalist. He is author of seven novels including The Dwarves of Death, What a Carve Up!, The House of Sleep and The Rotters’ Club, a semi-autobiographical account of a group of school friends in Birmingham in the 1970s, which has since been adapted as a television series.

He has won the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for The Rotters’ Club and and the Samuel Johnson Prize for his biography of novelist B.S. Johnson. In France he has been made Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Jonathan Coe says, ‘Birmingham University has always been an important presence in my life – starting from the time when, for seven years, I walked past the mock-Italian clock tower every day on my way to school. So of course this is a wonderful honour but I’m especially delighted that it has come from my home city.’

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Notes to Editors

There will be an opportunity to photograph the honorary graduands in the 15 minutes prior to each degree ceremony. Please telephone the press office for accreditation.

 For further information Kate Chapple, Press Officer, University of Birmingham, tel 0121 414 2772 or 07789 921164.