Jarred McGinnis

Jarred P. McGinnis (born ) is an American-born writer based in France and the United Kingdom. In 2021, he was named as one of the best 10 emerging writers from the UK by The Guardian.

Life and education McGinnis grew up in Siesta Key, Florida, United States. The day before his 21st birthday, while studying at the University of Texas at Austin, he had a car accident that caused a spinal cord injury, resulting in paraplegia and the loss of the use of his legs.

Before the accident McGinnis wanted to study screenwriting, but he turned to computer science when he realized the need for a job and health insurance due to his disability. His doctoral thesis was titled On the Mutability of Protocols. Its protagonist, also named Jarred McGinnis, loses the use of his legs in a car accident and is forced to move in with his estranged father. McGinnis has said that he has "tried not to use the term auto-fiction",

The book was selected for BBC Two's Between The Covers and BBC Radio 2's Book Club programs and was long-listed for the Barbellion Prize. Translated into French by Marc Amfreville as Le Lâche, it won the "foreign books" category of the Prix du Premier Roman (First Novel prize) and was nominated for the prestigious Femina prize.

In 2023, McGinnis was awarded an Eccles Centre & Hay Festival Writer's Award for a forthcoming work for The Mountain Weight, which "mines his family’s history, from the American Civil War to the present day, to examine themes of masculinity, family and migration".

The completed book, now titled There is No Meant to Be, is published by Harvill Secker in March 2026.

Other activities He is the co-founder of The Special Relationship, described as "the polymath of literary evenings", which was chosen for the British Council's International Literature Showcase. He was the creative director for Moby-Dick Unabridged, a four-day immersive multimedia reading of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick at the Southbank Centre, involving hundreds of participants.

Awards McGinnis was awarded the 2023 Eccles Centre & Hay Festival Writer's award for a forthcoming work for The Mountain Weight, the other winner being Ayanna Lloyd Banwo.

His first novel's French edition won the foreign books category of the Prix du Premier Roman (First Novel prize).

Other writings

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