Mark Haddon
1 book analyzed
Biography
Mark Haddon (born 1962, Northampton) worked in his twenties with adults and children with disabilities, including people with autism, before becoming a writer and illustrator of children's books. When he wrote Curious Incident in 2003 — in his early forties — he drew on that direct experience while deliberately declining to label Christopher's condition. Haddon has said in interviews that he did not research autism while writing the novel; he was writing about a specific character who sees the world in a specific way, and he did not want the character to be defined by a diagnosis. This choice was both artistically deliberate and, subsequently, controversial — some advocates in the autistic community criticized the novel's portrayal as a misrepresentation, while others celebrated it. Haddon himself has consistently said Christopher is not 'autistic Christopher' but 'Christopher, who happens to process the world this way.' The novel won the Whitbread Award for both Best Novel and Book of the Year in 2003 and became one of the fastest-selling debut adult novels in British publishing history.