Mark Haddon moves between prose and pictures, novels and children’s writing, poetry and drama. Readers who first met him through a famous novel can follow a much wider creative life. His festival conversations about a memoir offered a chance to hear how words and images work together in telling a childhood.
Quick facts
Best known for
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Genre or subject
Fiction, memoir, poetry and writing for children
Latest book
Leaving Home: A Memoir in Full Colour (2026), Chatto & Windus
Haddon writes novels, poetry and children’s books, and works for radio and television. He has written and illustrated for younger readers, and His contribution to children’s television has also received recognition. Drawing is part of that working life, alongside the prose for which many adult readers know him.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is a familiar route into his work. Beyond it are other novels, short stories and poetry, so a reader can follow his storytelling into more than one form. Pictures and dramatic voices give him further ways to approach the page.
Chatto & Windus published Leaving Home: A Memoir in Full Colour in February 2026. The book brings words and images together to look back at childhood. It lets a reader spend time with the visual strand of his work as well as his sentences, following memory through both forms. That combination was at the centre of his spring and summer festival conversations.
Where to start with their books
The Porpoise
A young woman’s isolated life leads into a story that moves between the modern world and antiquity. Start here for a sea-going novel of pursuit, danger and fractured family, where a flight from one place opens onto a much stranger journey across time.
The Red House
Two related families spend a week in a rented house on the Welsh border. Choose it for a close view of people living alongside each other: shared meals and walks bring old relationships and different memories into the same space, with several voices shaping the novel.
A Spot of Bother
A family wedding disturbs George Hall’s retirement while a frightening mark on his skin consumes his attention. It offers a starting point in domestic fiction, with the family’s competing concerns unfolding around a man whose private fear is growing in the middle of the commotion.
Festival appearances
For tickets, use the host festival’s official box office. Confirm the date, venue and access details before paying.
Oxford welcomed Haddon to the Ursell Room at Pusey House on 28 March for his memoir event. At Edinburgh on 15 August, he spoke about the same book in the Courtyard Theatre.
The two appearances followed the memoir’s publication and gave readers the chance to hear a familiar novelist discuss writing from life. Words and images were the book’s connection: a reader who enjoys his prose could also come with an interest in how a picture carries a memory.
Where to see them next
No 2027 appearances announced yet. Check the festival guides for programme dates.
Plan your trip
If the memoir is your starting point, give yourself time to look at its images before the trip. Turn back to a page where a drawing changes what you take from the words; it may give you a question you would enjoy carrying into the conversation.
Travelling with another reader can make the day richer if you have each chosen a different Haddon book. Compare the voices or images you noticed afterwards over a meal. Keep your bag light if you are moving between sessions, and check signing plans before bringing books you hope to have signed.
The 2026 programmes featured Mark Haddon at Edinburgh International Book Festival, Oxford Literary Festival; follow those guides for event information and practical visit details.
Is his latest book a novel?
It is a memoir told with words and images. If you know him through fiction, this offers another side of his writing and drawing, with childhood memories providing the subject of the book.
Can I attend if I have only read one Haddon book?
Yes. Bring the interest that book sparked, whether it was a voice, an image or the way a story unfolded. Browsing the memoir beforehand can help you decide whether its subject is the conversation you want.
How should I book a Haddon event?
Book through the festival’s official box office and check the individual venue. If you want to bring a book for signing, ask about the plan for that session before packing it; access questions also belong with the organiser.
