Philip Pullman
Doctor of Letters (HonDLitt)
Year conferred: 2002
In 1992 Philip Pullman became the first writer to win the Whitbread Book of the Year Award for a work of children’s fiction. The novel, The Amber Spyglass, is the final volume of the trilogy, His Dark Materials, which came in third in the BBC’s poll to find the Nation’s Favourite Read. Not only was his work the only one to make it into to the top three without the aid of a film or television series, it was also the only work by a living writer to do so. The trilogy is currently being made into a film series, being filmed in Oxford.
Philip studied English Language and Literature at Exeter College, Oxford, graduating in 1968, and went on to take a postgraduate teaching qualification. Teaching brought him back to Oxford, where he taught in various middle schools until being seconded to Westminster College in 1986. He subsequently joined the College as a part-time senior lecturer in the English Department and continued to teach there until becoming a full-time writer in 1986.
Philip is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was the Chairman of the Society of Authors.
