About the Author: Alex Garland
Alex Garland (born 1970) is a British novelist and screenwriter.
Garland is the son of political cartoonist Nick (Nicholas) Garland. He attended the independent University College School, in Hampstead, London, and the University of Manchester, where he studied art history.
His first novel, The Beach, was published in 1996 and drew on his experiences as a backpacker. The novel quickly became a cult classic and was made into a film by Danny Boyle, with Leonardo DiCaprio.
The Tesseract, Garland's second novel, was published in 1998. This was also made into a film, starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers. In 2003, he wrote the screenplay for Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later, starring Cillian Murphy. His third novel, The Coma, was published in 2004 and was illustrated with woodcuts by his father.
In 2007 he wrote the screenplay for the film Sunshine – his second screenplay to be directed by Danny Boyle and star Cillian Murphy as lead. Garland also served as an executive producer on 28 Weeks Later, the sequel to 28 Days Later.
Garland also wrote the first screenplay for Halo, the film adaptation of the successful video game franchise by Bungie Studios.
His partner is actress/director Paloma Baeza.
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Alex Garland
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Paperback, Published in May 2011 by Penguin
ISBN10: 0241952379 | ISBN13: 9780241952375
Page count: 439
In our ever-shrinking world, where popular Western culture seems to have infected every nation on the planet, it is hard to find even a small niche of unspoiled land--forget searching for pristine islands or continents. This is the situation in Alex Garland's debut novel, The Beach. Human progress has reduced Eden to a secret little beach near Thailand. In the tradition of grand adventure novels, Richard, a rootless traveler rambling around Thailand on his way somewhere else, is given a hand-drawn map by a madman who calls himself Daffy Duck. He and two French travelers set out on a journey to find this paradise.
What makes this a truly satisfying novel is the number of levels on which it operates. On the surface it's a fast-paced adventure novel; at another level it explores why we search for these utopias, be they mysterious lost continents or small island communes. Garland weaves a gripping and thought-provoking narrative that suggests we are, in fact, such products of our Western culture that we cannot help but pollute and ultimately destroy the very sanctuary we seek.
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