Ray French was born in Wales to Irish parents, and now lives in Scotland. His first book was The Red Jag and Other Stories (2000). His novel, All This Is Mine (2003), was translated into Dutch and Italian. Going Under (2007), his second novel, is about a man who buries himself alive in his back garden, announcing that he’s not coming back up until his employer changes their decision to close the factory where he works and relocate to India. It was translated into French and German, adapted for German radio, and is currently optioned as a film in France.
He is one of four male authors featured in the collection Four Fathers (2006), eight stories about having and being a father. His short story, ‘Migration’, was published in the compilation Best European Fiction (2013), and others have been included in several collections. He is the co-editor of End Notes: Ten stories about loss, mourning and commemoration (2017), and I Wouldn’t Start From Here: The Second Generation Irish in Britain (2019), a collection of essays, fiction and poetry.
He has run residential writing courses for the Arvon Foundation, workshops in schools, libraries and art galleries, and worked with community writing groups, refugees and teenagers. He has lectured at Leeds Trinity University, the University of Leeds and the University of Hull.