Kevin Jackson (writer)
Kevin Alec Jackson was an English writer, broadcaster, filmmaker and pataphysician.
Background
Kevin Alec Jackson was born in Balham, London, on 3 January 1955, to Alec and Alma Jackson, of Clapham. He was educated at the Emanuel School, Battersea, and Pembroke College, Cambridge.Career
After teaching in the English Department of Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, US, he returned to the United Kingdom and joined the BBC, first as a producer in radio and then as a director of short documentaries for television. In 1987, he was recruited to the Arts pages of The Independent. He was a freelance writer from the early 1990s and was a regular contributor to BBC radio programmes, including Radio 4's Saturday Review.Jackson often collaborated on projects with, among others, the filmmaker Kevin Macdonald, with whom he co-produced a Channel 4 documentary on Humphrey Jennings, The Man Who Listened to Britain ; with the cartoonist Hunt Emerson, on comic strips about the history of Western occultism for Fortean Times, on two comics inspired by John Ruskin and on a book-length version of Dante's Inferno ; with the musician and composer Colin Minchin ; and with the songwriter Peter Blegvad. Jackson also conducted a long biographical interview with Blegvad, published in September 2011 by Atlas Press as The Bleaching Stream. Jackson appears, under his own name, as a semi-fictional character in Iain Sinclair's account of a pedestrian journey around the M25, London Orbital. Worple Press published Jackson's book of interviews with Sinclair, The Verbals in 2002.
He was among the founder members of the London Institute of 'Pataphysics, and held the Ordre de la Grande Gidouille from the College de Pataphysique in Paris. He was also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a Companion of the Guild of St George. From 2009–2011 he was visiting professor in English at University College London.
Personal life and death
In 2004, Jackson married American academic Claire Preston, a fellow at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. They lived in Linton, Cambridgeshire. Jackson died from heart failure at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge on 10 May 2021, at the age of 66.Select bibliography
As author
The Language of Cinema, published by Routledge Press 1998 Invisible Forms: A Guide to Literary Curiosities, published by St Martin's Press 2000 Building the Great Pyramid, Published by Firefly Books 2003 Letters of Introduction, Published by Carcanet Press Ltd 2004 Humphrey Jennings, Published by Picador Press 2004 A Ruskin Alphabet, Published by Worple Press 2000 Withnail & I , 2008 Lawrence of Arabia , 2007 Fast, 2006 Moose, Published by Reaktion Books 2009 Bite: A Vampire Handbook, Published by Portobello Books Ltd 2010 The Pataphysical Flook, 2007 The Worlds of John Ruskin, Published by Pallas Athene Arts 2009 Chronicles of Old London, Published by Museyon Guides 2012 Constellation of Genius, Published by Hutchinson Press 2012 Nosferatu : eine Symphonie des Grauens , published by British Film Institute 2013 Carnal, published by Pallas Athene Arts 2015- Mayflower: The Voyage from Hell published by TSB | Can of Worms, 2020
- Darwin’s Odyssey: The Voyage of the Beagle published by TSB | Can of Worms, 2020
- The Queen’s Pirate: Sir Francis Drake and the Golden Hind published by TSB | Can of Worms, 2019
- Nelson’s Victory: Trafalgar and Tragedy published by TSB | Can of Worms, 2021