“My mother's side taught me to be a little bit afraid of everything. For a long time, I was quiet and cautious. But shyness makes you notice other people's excruciations and feel for them. I think that made a writer of me.”

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.