James Lasdun

James Lasdun (born 8 June 1958) is an English novelist and poet.

Life and career Lasdun was born in London, the son of Susan (Bendit) and British architect Sir Denys Lasdun. Lasdun has written four novels, including , a New York Times Notable Book, and , which was an Economist Book of the Year and was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize for fiction. He has published four collections of short stories, including , the title story of which was adapted for film by Bernardo Bertolucci as in 1998. His latest collection was chosen as a Best Book of the Year by , the , the and the . Lasdun has written four books of poetry, one of which, Landscape with Chainsaw, was a finalist for the T. S. Eliot Prize, the Forward Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. It was also selected as a TLS International Book of the Year.

In 2013 he published a memoir: Give Me Everything You Have: On Being Stalked. His alleged stalker wrote a memoir in response called Writing and Madness in a Time of Terror.

With Jonathan Nossiter, Lasdun co-wrote the film Sunday in 1997, based on his story , winning both the Best Feature Award and the Waldo Salt Best Screenplay Award at Sundance. Together they also wrote the next Nossiter film Signs and Wonders in 2000, starring Charlotte Rampling and Stellan Skarsgard, selected for the official selection of the 50th Berlin International Film Festival in 2000.

His reviews and essays have appeared in , , the , and The New Yorker.

With his wife, Pia Davis, Lasdun has written two guidebooks dedicated to the combined pleasures of walking and eating: one in Tuscany and Umbria, the other in Provence.

He has taught creative writing at Princeton, New York University, the New York State Writers' Institute, the New School, Columbia University and Bennington College.

Critical appraisals of his work include reviews by James Wood in The Guardian, Gabriele Annan in The New York Review of Books and Johanna Thomas-Corr in The Observer.

Lasdun's 2017 article "My Dentist's Murder Trial: Adultery, False Identities, and a Lethal Sedation" was published in The New Yorker and loosely inspired the dark comedy television miniseries DTF St. Louis, which aired on HBO in 2026.