Michael Arditti is a novelist, short story writer and critic. His novels are The Celibate (1993), Pagan and her Parents (Pagan's Father in the USA) (1996), Easter (2000), Unity (2005), A Sea Change (2006), The Enemy of the Good (2009), Jubilate (2011), The Breath of Night (2013), Widows and Orphans (2016), Of Men and Angels (2018) and The Anointed (2020). His short story collection, Good Clean Fun, was published in 2004. He was awarded a Harold Hyam Wingate scholarship in 2000, a Royal Literary Fund fellowship in 2001, an Oppenheim-John Downes memorial award in 2003 and Arts Council awards in 2004 and 2007. He was the Leverhulme artist in residence at the Freud museum in 2008. His novels have been short- and long-listed for several literary awards and Easter won the inaugural Waterstone's Mardi Gras award. In 2012 he was awarded an Honorary DLitt by the University of Chester.
A serious and important writer -- ROSE TREMAIN Michael Arditti's magnificent novel is the first to place a woman priest at the centre of what proves to be an irresistibly readable, thoughtful and characteristically witty examination of the quandaries and compromises faced by the Church of England in an era of decline . . . I loved this book for its lightness of touch about serious subjects and for dialogue that glitters like clashing rapiers. -- MIRANDA SEYMOUR A book that probes any number of aggressive varieties of moralism, while testing the reader's own moral alertness for rigour, realism and generosity. An engrossing, three-dimensional, grown-up narrative. -- ROWAN WILLIAMS At a time when British fiction has never been more timorous about tackling novels of ideas, Michael Arditti has produced one worthy of Iris Murdoch and Graham Greene . . . Brilliantly ambiguous, waspishly witty and thoroughly enjoyable, this is Michael Arditti's own masterpiece to date. -- AMANDA CRAIG