Robert Schofield
Robert Schofield (1982) published his first, prizewinning novel in 2011.
Robert Schofield, Luxembourg office worker by day, novelist by night, had his first novel, The Fig Tree and the Mulberry, published in 2011 by Editions Saint-Paul, the largest Luxembourg publisher. A story of 1940s New Zealand, it was a prizewinner in the annual Luxembourg literary competition, possibly the first time the competition judges had awarded a prize to a novel in English.
Two years later, Robert’s children’s book, The Hoogen-Stoogen Tulip, was published in English and in a Luxembourgish translation (Editions Guy Binsfeld) and was shortlisted for the Luxembourg children’s book prize. It includes drawings by the satirical illustrator Carlo Schmitz and tells of the disastrous consequences of speculation… in tulip bulbs.
Having studied French and German at the Hall, Robert subsequently worked in a variety of exotic locations, from Westminster and Leicester to Abidjan and Harare, before arriving in Luxembourg more than fifteen years ago.
Other than essays and translations, my writing at the time was restricted to some heartfelt and probably pretentious poetry, but the poetics at least involved the measuring and moulding of language, whether English or, just sometimes, German or French. The key advantage at Oxford, though, was the opportunity to read so much, from the byways of German Poetic Realism to the likes of Flaubert, Mallarmé, Klaus and Thomas Mann, master manipulators all. Even in the novels I write today, I can find the influence of what I read at the Hall.
