“The novels I planned to write were never going to be funny books about Jews. They were going to be country house books. Only later on could I write what I knew I was best at writing about.”

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.