
William Boyd
William Andrew Murray Boyd CBE FRSL (born 7 March 1952) is a Scottish novelist, short story writer and screenwriter. Boyd was born in Accra, Gold Coast, (present-day Ghana), to Scottish parents, both from Fife, and has two younger sisters. His father Alexander, a doctor specialising in tropical medicine, and Boyd's mother, who was a teacher, moved to the Gold Coast in 1950 to run the health clinic at the University College of the Gold Coast, Legon (now the University of Ghana). In the early 1960s the family moved to western Nigeria, where Boyd's father held a similar position at the University of Ibadan. Boyd spent his early life in Ghana and Nigeria and, at the age of nine, went to a preparatory school and then to Gordonstoun school in Scotland, and, after that, to the University of Nice in France, followed by the University of Glasgow, where he gained an M.A. (Hons) in English & Philosophy, and finally Jesus College, Oxford. His father died of a rare disease when Boyd was 26. Between 1980 and 1983 Boyd was a lecturer in English at St Hilda's College, Oxford, and it was while he was there that his first novel, A Good Man in Africa (1981), was published. He was also television cr…
Acting
- 2022Remembers…Self1 ep.
Behind the camera
- 2020Spy CityExecutive Producer, Writer6 ep.
- 2012RestlessExecutive Producer, Screenplay2 ep.
- 2010Any Human HeartWriter4 ep.
- 200910 Minute TalesWriter1 ep.
- 2001Sword of HonourWriter2 ep.
Guest appearances
- 2023Remembers…Self1 ep.
- 1985ApostrophesSelf2 ep.