Eoin Colfer

Eoin (pronounced ‘Owen’) Colfer was a primary school teacher in Wexford, Ireland up until he secured the largest ever advance for a children’s novel by an unknown author in October 2000. He cast a spell on the publishing and film industries with his fantastically original novel, Artemis Fowl, and hasn’t looked back since. Miramax and Tribeca productions teamed up for a film option before the book had even been auctioned at the Frankfurt Book Fair that year. The film is now slated to go into production next year.

Total UK sales of Artemis Fowl titles now exceed a staggering 4.5 million copies in the UK and Ireland and over 18 million worldwide. His work is published in 44 countries. He has achieved huge international critical acclaim in the media and the book trade and is ranked alongside Philip Pullman, Jacqueline Wilson and Anthony Horowitz as one of the UK’s most popular and best-selling children’s authors.

Eoin is also an extremely talented performer. Recipient of a Herald Angel Award for Performance at the 2004 Edinburgh Fringe (the first author to win such an award), in April 2006 Eoin took his hilarious one man show, Fairies, Fiends and Flatulence, an adrenaline-fuelled exposé of teenage criminal mastermind Artemis Fowl to theatres nationwide. Following the sell-out success of his regional UK tour, Eoin made his West End debut at the Trafalgar Theatre in October 2006 receiving wide acclaim:

‘Brilliantly surreal… full of farting, gentle mockery and subversiveness’
The Times

‘Like Dave Allen for juniors’
Sunday Times

‘The ex-teacher’s lesson is the frothy tale of his childhood and his mischievous siblings, illustrated by beautifully evocative photographs… our amiable, pixie-like host is never dull’
Evening Standard, Four Stars

Artemis Fowl won the WHSmith ‘People’s Choice’ Children’s Book of the Year Award 2002, The Children’s Book of the Year at the British Book Awards and was shortlisted for both the Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year 2001 and The Blue Peter Book Award 2002. Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident was shortlisted for the Red House Children’s Book Award 2002.

Colfer, who is 43, lives in Wexford, a seaside town in the south-east of Ireland, with his wife Jackie and their sons Finn and Sean.