Rupert Christiansen


Rupert Christiansen is an English writer, journalist and critic.

Life and career

Born in London, Christiansen is the grandson of Arthur Christiansen and son of Kay and Michael Christiansen. He was educated at Millfield and King's College, Cambridge, where he took a double first in English. As a Fulbright scholar, he also attended Columbia University from 1977 to 1978.
He has written a number of books, winning the Somerset Maugham Award in 1988 for Romantic Affinities. His memoir I Know you're Going to be Happy won the Spear's Memoir of the Year prize in 2013.
He has also written for many British and American newspapers and periodicals, including The Spectator, Harper's and Queen, Vanity Fair, Times Literary Supplement and Literary Review. Formerly arts editor of Harper's and Queen and deputy arts editor of The Observer, he has been opera critic and arts columnist of the Daily Telegraph and dance critic of The Mail on Sunday since 1996. Christiansen also sits on the editorial board of Opera magazine. In 2010, he was appointed to the international jury of the Birgit Nilsson Prize.
Christiansen was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1997. Between 2014 and 2016, he was a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at University of East Anglia, and since 2016 he has been Collaborating Research Scholar at Keble College, Oxford, where he also teaches.
Formerly a board member of the Charleston Trust and Gate Theatre, he was appointed to the boards of the Cambridge Arts Theatre and Shadwell Opera in 2016.
In 2009, he entered a civil partnership with the architectural critic Ellis Woodman. He lives in London.

Books