“I recall waking to the realisation that I was the best table tennis player under 17 in north Manchester and parts of Bury. The satisfaction lasted for half an hour before I saw into the nothingness of things.”

British novelist and journalist

Howard Eric Jacobson is a British novelist and journalist. He is known for comic fiction, especially novels that explore the dilemmas of British Jewish characters. He won the Man Booker Prize. His writing blends humour with close attention to identity, culture, and private uncertainty. The comic edge is central to his work, and his novels often return to the pressures and contradictions faced by British Jewish lives.