Philip Hoare (born 1958, Southampton) is the author of six works of non-fiction: Serious Pleasures: The Life of Stephen Tennant (1990) and Noel Coward: A Biography (1995), Wilde’s Last Stand: Decadence, Conspiracy, and the First World War (1997), Spike Island: The Memory of a Military Hospital (2000), and England’s Lost Eden: Adventures in a Victorian Utopia (2005). Leviathan or, The Whale (2008), won the 2009 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction.

His latest book, The Sea Inside, is published by 4th Estate, UK, Melville House, US, & Atico de los Libros, Spain.

An experienced broadcaster and curator, Hoare wrote and presented the BBC Arena film The Hunt for Moby-Dick, and directed three films for BBC’s Whale Night.  He is Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Southampton, and Leverhulme Artist-in-residence at The Marine Institute, Plymouth University, which awarded him an honourary doctorate in 2011.

He is also co-curator, with Angela Cockayne, of the Moby-Dick Big Read, www.mobydickbigread.com

Film Clips:

Moby-Dick & the Anthropocene, Sydney, 2014

The Whale, British Council, Berlin, 2015

John Waters on Philip Hoare