John Ironmonger
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John Ironmonger

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John Ironmonger (born 8 July 1954 in Nairobi, Kenya) is a British author and zoologist whose novels explore the nature of humanity, memory, and the way communities respond to global crises. He studied zoology at the University of Nottingham and earned a PhD from the University of Liverpool for his work on freshwater ecosystems. His early career included lecturing in Nigeria and working in healthcare computing in the UK. His first novel, The Notable Brain of Maximilian Ponder, was published by Orion Books in 2012 after a publisher's auction for the manuscript. It was shortlisted for the Costa First Book Award 2012 and was runner-up in the Guardian’s ‘Not The Booker Prize.’ The novel explores the short and eventful life of a man who sets out to catalogue his own brain. In 2014 his second novel, ‘The Coincidence Authority’ (published as ‘Coincidence’ by Harper Collins in the USA), told a tale of love and predetermination set in conflict-torn Uganda. This novel in French translation (as Le Génie des Coincidences) won Le Prix des Lecteurs (Reader’s Prize) at Littératures Européennes in Cognac in November 2015 and the Prix Bouchon de Cultures. John Ironmonger's third novel, ‘Not Forgetting the Whale’ is a semi-apocalyptic story set in Cornwall showing how a small community might respond to a global pandemic. In German translation as, 'Der Wal und das Ende der Welt,' it reached Number 1 in the Spiegel bestseller chart in December 2020. The novel was republished in the UK as 'The Whale at the End of the World.' A fourth novel, 'The Many Lives of Heloise Starchild,' was published by Orion Books in August 2020. The novel imagines a line of women who inherit memories from their mothers. A novella, 'The Year of the Dugong' (Das Jahr des Dugong) was published by S. Fischer Verlag in German to coincide with COP26 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference. The novella addresses issues of climate change. In 2022 Ironmonger parted company with Orion Books. A novel focussing on the climate crisis was published in German in 2023 as 'Der Eisbär und die Hoffnung auf Morgen,' and in English as 'The Wager and the Bear,' in 2025 by Manchester based 'Fly on the Wall Press'. John Ironmonger lives in Parkgate, Cheshire, with his wife Sue, a former RSPCA farm assessor. They have two children and believe they are among the few Europeans (if any) to have seen a Javan rhino with a calf in the wild
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Not Forgetting the Whale

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