WRITER

Will Self

1961 - Today

Will Self

William Woodard Self (born 26 September 1961) is an English writer, journalist, political commentator and broadcaster. He has written 11 novels, five collections of shorter fiction, three novellas and nine collections of non-fiction writing. Self is currently Professor of Modern Thought at Brunel University London, where he teaches psychogeography.His 2002 novel Dorian, an Imitation was longlisted for the Booker Prize, and his 2012 novel Umbrella was shortlisted. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Will Self has received more than 1,451,752 page views. His biography is available in 21 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 17 in 2019). Will Self is the 7,132nd most popular writer (down from 6,372nd in 2019), the 7,113th most popular biography from United Kingdom (down from 6,469th in 2019) and the 742nd most popular British Writer.

Memorability Metrics

1.5M
Page Views (PV)
32.22
Historical Popularity Index (HPI)
21
Languages Editions (L)
1.46
Effective Languages (L*)
4.17
Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Notable Works

Cock and Bull

English Satire, Sex change, Fiction

Carol, the heroine of Cock, is extremely dissatisfied with her married life. Realisation that her husband Dan is not the man for her has come too late and insult follows injury as Dan's drinking problem gives way to an obsessive fervour for Alcoholics Anonymous. One evening while Dan is out, Carol discovers something entirely unexpected about herself that leads her into rather twisted and distinctly uncharted waters...On the flip side, there is Bull. John Bull is a man's man. A rugby player, a drinker. He's also about to wake up to something of an anatomical surprise, a surprise that his doctor seems to be much more interested in than is entirely proper...

1992

My idea of fun

Fiction, Humor (Fiction)

When the young Ian Wharton first meets Mr Broadhurst, he is completely unaware of the influence he will come to exert over his life as 'The Fat Controller' - a constant companion and confidant and also the obese, erudite manifestation of Ian's mental illness. As Ian's idea of fun becomes increasingly extreme, the reader is taken to a place where morality is eroded by the dull grind of modernity and everything becomes admissable.

1993

Great apes

Human-animal relationships, Fiction, Chimpanzees

1997

The quantity theory of insanity

Social life and customs, England in fiction, English Humorous stories

The fictional world of Will Self is unlike any other. In The Quantity Theory of Insanity, we learn, amongst other things, the dark and terrible secret of Ward 9, why you are right to think that London is full of dead people and that each and every human being is caught up in a colossal balancing act between the sane and the insane ... The Quantity Theory of Insanity is acerbic, satirical, hilarious and, most of all, utterly unique in imaginative vision.

1991

Junk mail

Essays, Nonfiction, Politics

Everything that makes Will Self's fiction so arresting and original is in evidence here in this collection of his best articles, book reviews and interviews from the Observer, the Guardian, the Independent, the Evening Standard and many more. Whether describing penis operations, narcotics or merely pondering the nature of slacking, these pieces are as witty and acerbic as one would expect from one of our foremost contemporary satirists.

1995

Dorian

Fiction, AIDS (Disease), Gay men

In the summer of 1981, aristocratic, drug-addicted Henry Wotton and Warhol-acolyte Baz Hallward meet Dorian Gray. Dorian is a golden Adonis- perfect, pure and (so far) deliciously uncorrupted. The subject of Baz's video installation, Cathode Narcissus, and the object of Henry's attentions, Dorian is launched on a hedonistic binge that spans the '80s and '90s. But as Baz and Henry succumb to the AIDS epidemic, how is it that Dorian, despite all his sexual and narcotic debauchery, remains so unsullied - so vibrantly alive?

2002

Page views of Will Selves by language

Over the past year Will Self has had the most page views in the English wikipedia edition with 134,048 views, followed by French (3,672), and German (2,473). In terms of yearly growth of page views the top 3 wikpedia editions are Esperanto (164.44%), Cornish (121.49%), and Egyptian Arabic (50.58%)