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Neil Gaiman (November 10, 1960–), British writer, was born in Porchester, Hampshire, England. Gaiman grew up in Sussex and has lived near Minneapolis, Minnesota, since 1992.
Gaiman initially garnered attention with the three-part comic book series Black Orchid (with Dave McKean, 1988) but gained lasting fame as the creator/writer of a monthly DC Comics horror-weird series, The Sandman. The mythos was based around a personification of dreams (most often referred to as Morpheus) and his six siblings, Destiny, Death, Desire, Despair (who was once Delight), Delirium, and Destruction, known as the Endless. The series began in 1987 and ended in 1996 after 75 issues (which have been collected into ten volumes). The series won nine Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, including the award for best writer four times, and three Harvey Awards. Sandman #19 received the 1991 World Fantasy Award for best short story, making it the first comic ever to be awarded a literary award.
In 1989, Gaiman published The Books of Magic (collected in 1991), a four-part miniseries that provided a tour of the mythological and magical parts of the DC Universe. A comic fantasy novel about the apocalypse, Good Omens, co-written with Terry Pratchett, appeared in 1990 (with a new edition in 2006). Gaiman's six-part fantastical TV series for the BBC, Neverwhere, aired in 1996. A novel of the same name and set in the same world was published in 1997.
Gaiman's first book for children, The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish, illustrated by Dave McKean, came out in May 1997 (reissued in 2003). Stardust, a Dunsanian fairy tale for adults illustrated by Charles Vess, began to appear from DC Comics in October 1997 (published in four parts, collected 1998). The 1999 novel version was listed by Publishers Weekly as one of the best books of the year and awarded the Mythopoeic Award as best novel for adults. Gaiman returned to Sandman in 1999 with The Dream Hunters, with art by Yoshitaka Amano, which won the Bram Stoker Award.
Gaiman's first major novel, the darkly mythic American Gods (2001) was awarded the Hugo, Nebula, Bram Stoker, SFX, and Locus awards, was nominated for many other awards, including the World Fantasy Award and the Minnesota Book Award, and appeared on many best-of-year lists.
His children's book Coraline, published in 2002, was an international bestseller and enormous critical success, winning the Elizabeth Burr/ Worzalla, the BSFA, the Hugo, the Nebula, and the Bram Stoker awards. (Director Henry Selick is making a film of Coraline, with music provided by the band They Might Be Giants.)
The Wolves In The Walls (2003), illustrated by Dave McKean, was named by the New York Times as one of the best illustrated books of the year. It is currently being made into an opera by the Scottish National Theatre. A Sandman graphic novel, Endless Nights (2003), became the first graphic novel to make the New York Times bestseller list.
In 2004, Gaiman published the first volume of a serialized story for Marvel called 1602, which was the bestselling comic of the year, and won the Quill Award in the graphic novel category.
Gaiman's novel Anansi Boys was published to acclaim in 2005. Gaiman described it as "a scary, funny sort of a story, which isn't exactly a thriller, and isn't really horror, and doesn't quite qualify as a ghost story (although it has at least one ghost in it), or a romantic comedy (although there are several romances in there, and it's certainly a comedy, except for the scary bits)."
His short stories have been collected in Angels and Visitations (1993); Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusion (1998), an International Horror Guild Award winner; and Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders (2006). Two Plays For Voices (2002), an audio adaptation of two of Gaiman's short stories, received a 2002 Audie Award from the Audio Publishers Association.
Gaiman wrote the English adaptation of Hayao Miyazaki's legendary Princess Mononoke (1997). He also wrote the Babylon 5 episode "Day of the Dead," which was broadcast in 1998. He wrote and directed his first film, the darkly comedic documentary A Short Film about John Bolton (2003). Mirrormask, a Jim Henson Company production written by Neil Gaiman and directed by Dave McKean, was released from Goldwyn/Sony in September 2005. Three tie-in books were published, also. Gaiman, along with Roger Avary, has scripted an animated "performance-capture" film of Beowulf that is to be directed by Robert Zemeckis and is slated for a 2007 release. He is also set to direct his first feature-length film, based on his graphic novel Death: The High Cost of Living for New Line Films.
Gaiman has long been associated with the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, a First Amendment organization, which awarded Gaiman their Defender of Liberty Award in 1997.
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