Matthew Sperling

For the Magic: The Gathering player, see Matthew Sperling (Magic: The Gathering player).

Matthew Sperling (born 1982) is a British-American novelist and academic.

His first novel, Astroturf, was published in 2018.^[1][2] It was chosen as a best summer book by Joe Dunthorne in The Guardian^[3] and as a Book of the Year by Rebecca Tamás in The White Review,^[4] and was longlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize 2019.^[5] His second novel, Viral, was published in 2020.^[6] It was chosen as Novel of the Week in The Sunday Telegraph^[7] and named as a book that should have been on the Booker Prize shortlist in The Irish Times.^[8] Sperling was listed among “important male novelists under 40” by James Marriott in The Times in 2020.^[9]

Sperling was educated at Gravesend Grammar School and the University of Oxford, and is Associate Professor of Creative and Critical Writing at University College London.^[10] He regularly writes about modern art for Apollo magazine.^[11] He was a judge for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction in 2020.^[12]

Works

Fiction

• Astroturf (riverrun, 2018) ISBN 9781787471153
• Viral (riverrun, 2020) ISBN 9781529401950

Literary Criticism

• Visionary Philology: Geoffrey Hill and the Study of Words (Oxford University Press, 2014) ISBN 9780198701088^[13][14]

Interviews

• "Creatives in profile: interview with Matthew Sperling", Nothing in the Rulebook (September 2020)^[15]

References

1. "Astroturf by Matthew Sperling: A brawn cocktail that nails the zeitgeist". irishtimes.com. 1 September 2018. Retrieved 2023-10-15.
2. "Body doubles: Toxic masculinity on steroids". the-tls.co.uk. Retrieved 2023-10-15.
3. "Best Summer Holiday Reads 2018". The Guardian. 8 July 2018. Retrieved 2023-10-15.
4. "Books of the Year". thewhitereview.org. Retrieved 2023-10-15.
5. "2019". wellcomebookprize.org. Retrieved 2023-10-15.
6. "Capitalism, not sex: Grasping for control of the memes of production in Viral by Matthew Sperling and Docile by K. M. Szpara". the-tls.co.uk. Retrieved 2023-10-15.
7. Kerridge, Jake (20 September 2020). "Novel of the week: Viral by Matthew Sperling". The Sunday Telegraph.
8. "Who will win the 2020 Booker Prize?". www.irishtimes.com. 14 November 2020. Retrieved 2025-02-23.
9. "Booker Prize 2020 longlist: where are the new male hotshot novelists?". thetimes.co.uk. 28 July 2020. Retrieved 2023-10-15.
10. "Dr Matthew Sperling". ucl.ac.uk. 30 April 2018. Retrieved 2023-10-15.
11. "Matthew Sperling, Author at Apollo Magazine". Apollo Magazine. Retrieved 2023-10-15.
12. "JUDGES ANNOUNCED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL FICTION AND THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING". orwellfoundation.com. Retrieved 2023-10-15.
13. O’Hanlon, Karl (2016). "Visionary Philology: Geoffrey Hill and the Study of Words by Matthew Sperling". Modernism/Modernity. 23 (2): 486–488. doi:10.1353/mod.2016.0033. ISSN 1080-6601. S2CID 148342908.
14. James Underwood (2016). "Book Review: Visionary Philology: Geoffrey Hill and the Study of Words by Matthew Sperling (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014)". The Modern Language Review. 111 (4): 1131. doi:10.5699/modelangrevi.111.4.1131. JSTOR 10.5699/modelangrevi.111.4.1131.
15. "Creatives in profile: interview with Matthew Sperling". nothingintherulebook.com/. Retrieved 2024-02-18.