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{{Short description|English novelist (1949–2023)}}
{{About||the landscape and documentary photographer|Martin Amis (photographer)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2023}}
{{Infobox writer
| honorific_prefix = [[Sir]]
| honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|FRSL}}
| image            = Martin amis 2014.jpg
| image_size       = 220
| caption          = Amis in 2014
| birth_name       = Martin Louis Amis
| birth_date       = {{birth date|1949|8|25|df=y}}
| birth_place      = [[Oxford]], England
| death_date       = {{death date and age|2023|5|19|1949|8|25|df=y}}
| death_place      = {{nowrap|[[Lake Worth Beach, Florida]], US}}
| nationality      = <!-- use only when necessary per [[WP:INFONAT]] -->
| education        =
| alma_mater       = [[Exeter College, Oxford]]
| years_active     = 
| pseudonym        = Henry Tilney
| notableworks     = {{ubl|''[[The Rachel Papers (novel)|The Rachel Papers]]'' (1973)|''[[Money (novel)|Money]]'' (1984)|''[[London Fields (novel)|London Fields]]'' (1989)}}
| spouse           = {{ubl|{{marriage|Antonia Phillips|1984|1993|end=div}}|{{marriage|[[Isabel Fonseca]]|1996}}}}
| children         = 5
| parents          = {{ubl|[[Kingsley Amis]]|[[Hilary Kilmarnock]]}}
| relatives        = [[Sally Amis]] (sister)
| awards           = {{awards|[[Knight Bachelor]]|[[2023 Birthday Honours|2023]]}}
| website          =
| module           = {{Listen|pos=center|embed=yes|filename=Martin Amis BBC Radio 3 Night Waves 2 April 2010 b00qc0fg.flac|title={{center|Martin Amis's voice}}|type=speech|description={{center|[[:File:Martin Amis BBC Radio 3 Night Waves 2 April 2010 b00qc0fg.flac|Recorded April 2010]] from the [[BBC Radio 3]] programme ''[[Night Waves]]''}}}}
| footnotes        =
}}

'''Sir Martin Louis Amis''' {{post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|FRSL}}<ref>{{cite web|title=Martin Amis|url=https://rsliterature.org/fellow/martin-amis-3/|access-date=21 May 2023|website=Royal Society of Literature|language=en-GB|archive-date=21 May 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230521142857/https://rsliterature.org/fellow/martin-amis-3/|url-status=dead}}</ref> (25 August 1949 – 19 May 2023) was an English novelist, essayist, memoirist, screenwriter and critic. He is best known for his novels ''[[Money (novel)|Money]]'' (1984) and ''[[London Fields (novel)|London Fields]]'' (1989). He received the [[James Tait Black Memorial Prize]] for his memoir ''[[Experience (book)|Experience]]'' and was twice listed for the [[Booker Prize]] (shortlisted in 1991 for ''[[Time's Arrow (novel)|Time's Arrow]]'' and longlisted in 2003 for ''[[Yellow Dog (novel)|Yellow Dog]]''). Amis was a professor of creative writing at the [[Manchester Centre for New Writing|University of Manchester's Centre for New Writing]] from 2007 until 2011.<ref name="colm_toibin_takes_over">{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/jan/26/colm-toibin-teaching-martin-amis|title=Colm Tóibín takes over teaching job from Martin Amis|location=London|work=The Guardian|first=Benedicte|last=Page|date=26 January 2011|access-date=12 December 2016|archive-date=14 April 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120414190623/http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jan/26/colm-toibin-teaching-martin-amis|url-status=live}}</ref> In 2008, ''[[The Times]]'' named him one of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945.<ref>{{cite news |title=The 50 greatest British writers since 1945 |newspaper=[[The Times]] |url=https://www.thetimes.com/culture/books/article/the-50-greatest-british-writers-since-1945-ws3g69xrf90 |date=5 January 2008 |access-date=26 September 2020 |issn=0140-0460 |archive-date=19 February 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200219025130/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-50-greatest-british-writers-since-1945-ws3g69xrf90 |url-status=live }}</ref> 

Amis's work centres on the excesses of [[Late capitalism|late capitalist]] Western society, whose perceived absurdity he often satirised through grotesque caricature. He was portrayed by some literary critics as a master of what ''[[The New York Times]]'' called "the new unpleasantness.”<ref name=Stout>Stout, Mira. [https://www.nytimes.com/books/98/02/01/home/amis-stout.html "Martin Amis: Down London's mean streets"] ({{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171108205127/http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/02/01/home/amis-stout.html |date=8 November 2017 }}), ''The New York Times'', 4 February 1990.</ref> He was inspired by [[Saul Bellow]] and [[Vladimir Nabokov]], as well as by his father [[Kingsley Amis]]. Amis influenced many British novelists of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, including [[Will Self]] and [[Zadie Smith]].<ref name=Guardianbooksbio>[https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/jun/09/martinamis "Martin Amis"] ([https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/jun/09/martinamis]), ''The Guardian'', 22 July 2008.</ref>

His stylistic innovations – marked by ironic detachment, baroque sentence structures, and postmodern narrative experimentation – shaped a generation of British writers.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Self |first=John |date=2023-05-20 |title=Martin Amis: he stamped his style over a generation of writers and readers |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/may/20/martin-amis-he-stamped-his-style-over-a-generation-of-writers-and-readers |access-date=2025-07-30 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}</ref> His novels are often credited with revitalizing the comic novel in late 20th-century Britain.<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Wood |first=James |date=2023-05-20 |title=Martin Amis's Comic Music |url=https://www.newyorker.com/culture/postscript/martin-amiss-comic-music |access-date=2025-07-30 |magazine=The New Yorker |language=en-US |issn=0028-792X}}</ref>

Amis died from [[oesophageal cancer]] at his house in [[Florida]] in 2023.<ref>{{cite web |date=21 May 2023 |title=Master stylist Martin Amis was the Mick Jagger of the literary world |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/martin-amis-tribute-books-kingsley-b2342888.html |access-date=24 May 2023 |website=The Independent |archive-date=16 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240616130528/https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/martin-amis-tribute-books-kingsley-b2342888.html |url-status=live }}</ref> [[A. O. Scott]] wrote in ''[[The New York Times]]'' after his death: "To come of reading age in the last three decades of the 20th century – from [[1973 oil crisis|the oil embargo]] through the [[fall of the Berlin Wall]], all the way to [[9/11]] – was to live, it now seems clear, in the Amis Era."<ref>{{cite news |last=Scott |first=A. O. |title=Good Night, Sweet Prince |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/22/books/review/martin-amis.html |work=The New York Times |date=22 May 2023 |access-date=31 May 2023 |archive-date=30 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230530210914/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/22/books/review/martin-amis.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

==Early life==
Amis was born on 25 August 1949 at Radcliffe Maternity Hospital in [[Oxford]], England.<ref>{{cite book |last=Bradford |first=Richard |title=Martin Amis: The Biography |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=grmeBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT9 |date=3 November 2011 |publisher=Little, Brown Book Group |isbn=978-1-84901-850-0 |access-date=7 July 2023 |archive-date=7 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230707163535/https://books.google.com/books?id=grmeBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT9 |url-status=live }}</ref> His father, novelist [[Kingsley Amis]], was the son of a [[Mustard (condiment)|mustard]] manufacturer's clerk from [[Clapham]], London;<ref name=Stout/> his mother, [[Kingston upon Thames]]-born [[Hilary Kilmarnock|Hilary ("Hilly") Ann Bardwell]],<ref name="Woodcock1983">{{cite book |last=Woodcock |first=George |title=Twentieth Century Fiction |date=1983 |publisher=Springer |isbn=978-1-349-17066-1 |page=36 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fgKwCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA36 |access-date=16 August 2022 |archive-date=16 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240616130527/https://books.google.com/books?id=fgKwCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA36#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live }}</ref> was the daughter of a [[Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs|Ministry of Agriculture]] civil servant.{{refn|group=n|Hilly Bardwell (21 July 1928 – 24 June 2010) was married three times, first to Kingsley Amis from 1948 to 1965, with whom she had three children, Philip, Martin, and Sally. Her second husband was [[D. R. Shackleton Bailey]] from 1967 to 1975, and finally, she married [[Alastair Boyd, 7th Baron Kilmarnock]], in 1977; they had one son, James, born in 1972.<ref>[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/books-obituaries/7880033/Hilly-Kilmarnock.html "Hilly Kilmarnock"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180829072209/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/books-obituaries/7880033/Hilly-Kilmarnock.html |date=29 August 2018 }}, ''The Daily Telegraph'', 8 July 2010.</ref>}} He had an elder brother, Philip; his younger sister, Sally – for whose birth [[Philip Larkin]] composed "Born Yesterday"<ref>{{cite web |last=Wetzsteon |first=Rachel |title=Philip Larkin and Happiness: On "Born Yesterday" |url=https://www.cprw.com/Misc/larkin1.htm |website=Contemporary Poetry Review |access-date=22 May 2023 |year=2010 |archive-date=16 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240616130523/https://www.cprw.com/Misc/larkin1.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> – died in 2000 at the age of 46. His parents married in 1948 in Oxford and divorced when Amis was 12 years old;<ref name="Calcutt2001">{{cite book |last=Calcutt |first=Andrew |title=Brit Cult: An A-z of British Pop Culture |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9FwsAAAAYAAJ&q=%22parents%20were%20divorced%22 |publisher=Contemporary Books |year=2001 |page=25 |isbn=978-0-8092-9324-7 |access-date=10 January 2021 |archive-date=16 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240616130554/https://books.google.com/books?id=9FwsAAAAYAAJ&q=%22parents%20were%20divorced%22 |url-status=live }}</ref> following the separation, Hilly and the children decamped to [[Mallorca]], Spain, where they stayed for a while with [[Robert Graves]].<ref>{{cite news |last=Vallés |first=M. Elena |title=Cuando el novelista Martin Amis y su familia vivieron en Mallorca: un viaje en el tren de Sóller a Palma |url=https://www.diariodemallorca.es/cultura/2023/05/21/novelista-martin-amis-familia-vivieron-87671870.html |access-date=22 May 2023 |work=[[Diario de Mallorca]] |date=21 May 2023 |language=es |archive-date=22 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230522094941/https://www.diariodemallorca.es/cultura/2023/05/21/novelista-martin-amis-familia-vivieron-87671870.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

Amis attended a number of schools in the 1950s and 1960s, including an international school in Mallorca,<ref name="Inside Story"/> [[Bishop Gore School]] in [[Swansea]], and [[Cambridgeshire High School for Boys]], where he was described by one headmaster as "unusually unpromising".<ref name=Guardianbooksbio/> The acclaim that followed his father's first novel ''[[Lucky Jim]]'' (1954) sent the family to [[Princeton, New Jersey]], in the United States, where his father lectured.<ref name="GuardianObituary">{{cite news |last=Tonkin |first=Boyd |title=Martin Amis obituary |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/may/20/martin-amis-obituary |access-date=20 May 2023 |newspaper=The Guardian |date=20 May 2023 |archive-date=16 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240616130529/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/may/20/martin-amis-obituary |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 1965, at the age of 15, Amis played John Thornton in the film version of [[Richard Hughes (British writer)|Richard Hughes]]'s ''[[A High Wind in Jamaica (film)|A High Wind in Jamaica]]''.<ref name="GuardianObituary" /> At {{convert|5|ft|6|in}} tall, he referred to himself as a "short-arse" while a teenager.<ref>{{cite web|title=Martin Amis|work=Intelligent Life|url=http://moreintelligentlife.com/story/martin-papers-my-life-martin-amis|access-date=22 October 2013|archive-date=23 October 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131023055725/http://moreintelligentlife.com/story/martin-papers-my-life-martin-amis|url-status=live}}</ref> His father said Amis was not a bookish child and "read nothing but science fiction till he was fifteen or sixteen".<ref name="Brat">{{cite news |last=Michener |first=Charles |title=Britain's Brat of Letters |url=https://classic.esquire.com/article/1987/1/1/britains-brat-of-letters |newspaper=Esquire |access-date=22 May 2023 |date=1 January 1987 |archive-date=22 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230522165641/https://classic.esquire.com/article/1987/1/1/britains-brat-of-letters |url-status=live }}</ref> Amis said he had read little more than comic books until his stepmother, the novelist [[Elizabeth Jane Howard]], introduced him to [[Jane Austen]], whom he often named as his earliest influence.<ref>{{cite news |last=Kennedy |first=Maev|author-link=Maev Kennedy |title=Martin Amis credits stepmother and Jane Austen for literary success |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/feb/22/martin-amis-credits-elizabeth-jane-howard-jane-austen-literary-success |access-date=21 May 2023 |work=The Guardian |date=22 February 2014 |archive-date=16 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240616130529/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/feb/22/martin-amis-credits-elizabeth-jane-howard-jane-austen-literary-success |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Inside Story">{{cite book |last=Amis |first=Martin |title=[[Inside Story (novel)|Inside Story]] |date=24 September 2020 |publisher=Jonathan Cape |location=London |isbn=978-0-593-31829-4 |chapter=Addendum: Elizabeth Jane Howard}}</ref> He graduated from [[Exeter College, Oxford]], with a [[congratulatory first]] in English, "the sort where you are called in for a [[thesis committee|viva]] and the examiners tell you how much they enjoyed reading your papers".<ref name="Leader2009">{{cite book |last=Leader |first=Zachary |title=The Life of Kingsley Amis |year=2009 |publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group |isbn=978-0-307-49645-4 |page=614 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m6-jZ7FsQUcC&pg=PA614 |access-date=23 May 2023 |archive-date=21 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230521193214/https://books.google.com/books/?id=m6-jZ7FsQUcC&pg=PA614 |url-status=live }}</ref>

After graduating from Oxford in 1971, Amis wrote reviews of science-fiction novels under the ''nom de plume'' "Henry Tilney" ([[Northanger Abbey|a nod to Austen]]) in a column for ''[[The Observer]]''.<ref name="Hayes2006">{{cite book |last=Hayes |first=M. Hunter |editor-last=Keulks |editor-first=Gavin |title=Martin Amis: Postmodernism and Beyond |year=2006 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |location=London |isbn=978-0-230-59847-8 |page=198 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4Cd_DAAAQBAJ&pg=PA198 |chapter=A Reluctant Leavesite: Martin Amis's "Higher Journalism" |access-date=21 May 2023 |archive-date=21 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230521191412/https://books.google.com/books?id=4Cd_DAAAQBAJ&pg=PA198 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="DiedrickHayes2006">{{cite book |last1=Diedrick |first1=James |last2=Hayes |first2=M. Hunter |editor-last=Keulks |editor-first=G. |title=Martin Amis: Postmodernism and Beyond |year=2006 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |location=London |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4Cd_DAAAQBAJ&pg=PA195 |chapter=Nonfiction by Martin Amis, 1971–2005 |page=195 |isbn=9780230598478 |access-date=22 May 2023 |archive-date=22 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230522205911/https://books.google.com/books?id=4Cd_DAAAQBAJ&pg=PA195 |url-status=live }}</ref>{{refn|group=n|His reviews included works by [[Asimov]], [[Blish]], [[John Brunner (author)|Brunner]], [[Arthur C. Clarke|Clarke]], [[Robert Silverberg|Silverberg]], [[Simak]], [[A.E. Van Vogt|Van Vogt]], [[Roger Zelazny|Zelazny]] and other leading writers in the field.<ref name="DiedrickHayes2006a">{{cite book |last1=Diedrick |first1=James |last2=Hayes |first2=M. Hunter |editor1-last=Keulks |editor1-first=G. |title=Martin Amis: Postmodernism and Beyond |year=2006 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |location=London |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4Cd_DAAAQBAJ&pg=PA214 |chapter=Nonfiction by Martin Amis, 1971–2005 |page=214 |isbn=9780230598478 |access-date=22 May 2023 |archive-date=22 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230522225931/https://books.google.com/books?id=4Cd_DAAAQBAJ&pg=PA214 |url-status=live }}</ref> [[Terence Kilmartin]], ''The Observer''{{'}}s literary editor, said that the tryout review he asked Amis to produce was thought by his colleagues to be the "work of someone who'd been reviewing for twenty years".<ref name="Brat"/>}} He found an entry-level job at ''[[The Times Literary Supplement]]'' by the summer of 1972.<ref name="Finney2013">{{cite book |last=Finney |first=Brian |title=Martin Amis |year=2013 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-136-01542-7 |page=20 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2dri-2Ytc28C&pg=PT20 |access-date=21 May 2023 |archive-date=21 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230521185824/https://books.google.com/books?id=2dri-2Ytc28C&pg=PT20 |url-status=live }}</ref> At the age of 27, he became literary editor of the ''[[New Statesman]]'', where he cited writer and editor [[John Gross]] as his role model,<ref>{{cite web |title=Martin Amis on John Gross: 'Everything I write, I send by John's desk. I still do and I always will' {{!}} Martin Amis pays tribute to writer and mentor John Gross, memorial service, London, March 17, 2011 |date=21 December 2011 |via=YouTube |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZ543iWyGLE |access-date=20 May 2023}}</ref> and met [[Christopher Hitchens]], then a feature writer for ''The Observer'', who remained Amis's closest friend until his death in 2011.<ref name=Garner />

==Early writing==
According to Amis, his father was deeply critical of certain aspects of his work. "I can point out the exact place where he stopped [reading Amis's novel ''Money''] and sent it twirling through the air; that's where the character named Martin Amis comes in." Kingsley complained: "Breaking the rules, buggering about with the reader, drawing attention to himself."<ref name=Stout/>

His first novel ''[[The Rachel Papers (novel)|The Rachel Papers]]'' (1973) – written at [[Lemmons]], the family home in north London – won the [[Somerset Maugham Award]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Somerset Maugham Awards: Past Winners |url=https://www2.societyofauthors.org/prizes/the-soa-awards/somerset-maugham-awards/ |website=Society of Authors |date=8 May 2020 |access-date=21 May 2023 |archive-date=13 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230413125200/https://www2.societyofauthors.org/prizes/the-soa-awards/somerset-maugham-awards/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>Bradford (2011) ''Martin Amis: The Biography'', Little, Brown Book Group, "Before He Left".</ref> It tells the story  of a bright, egotistical teenager and his relationship with the eponymous girlfriend in the year before going to university;<ref name="James2020">{{cite book |last1=James |first1=Andrew |editor1-last=Bradford |editor1-first=Richard |editor2-last=Gonzalez |editor2-first=Madelena |editor3-last=Butler |editor3-first=Stephen |editor4-last=Ward |editor4-first=James |editor5-last=De Ornellas |editor5-first=Kevin |title=The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Contemporary British and Irish Literature |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eSH7DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA244 |year=2020 |pages=242–244 |chapter=Martin Amis |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=9781119653066 |access-date=21 May 2023 |archive-date=21 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230521235236/https://books.google.com/books?id=eSH7DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA244 |url-status=live }}</ref> It has been described as "autobiographical"<ref name="Garner"/><ref name="Brat"/> and was made into an unsuccessful [[The Rachel Papers|1989 film]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=rachelpapers.htm |title=The Rachel Papers |work=[[Box Office Mojo]] |access-date=24 September 2013 |archive-date=27 September 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130927142734/http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=rachelpapers.htm |url-status=live }}</ref>

''[[Dead Babies (novel)|Dead Babies]]'' (1975),<ref name="James2020" /> more flippant in tone, chronicles a few days in the lives of some friends who convene in a country house to take drugs.<ref name="McWhorter1977">{{cite journal |last1=McWhorter |first1=Diane |title=An Ugly Joke: "Dead Babies" |journal=The North American Review |year=1977 |volume=262 |issue=1 |page=72 |jstor=25117878 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25117878 |access-date=21 May 2023 |issn=0029-2397 |archive-date=15 February 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230215041942/https://www.jstor.org/stable/25117878 |url-status=live }}</ref> A number of Amis's writerly characteristics show up here for the first time: mordant black humour, obsession with the [[zeitgeist]], authorial intervention, a character subjected to sadistically humorous misfortunes and humiliations, and a defiant casualness ("my attitude has been, I don't know much about science, but I know what I like"). [[Dead Babies (film)|A film adaptation]] was made in 2000, which ''Guardian'' film critic [[Peter Bradshaw]] described as "boring, embarrassing, nasty and stupid – and not in a good way".<ref name="Bentley2015121">{{cite book |last1=Bentley |first1=Nick |title=Martin Amis |year=2015 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-7463-1178-3 |page=121 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZYdNEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA121 |access-date=21 May 2023 |archive-date=21 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230521174516/https://books.google.com/books?id=ZYdNEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA121 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Bradshaw |first1=Peter |title=Review: Dead Babies |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/jan/26/martinamis.film |access-date=21 May 2023 |newspaper=The Guardian |date=26 January 2001 |archive-date=16 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240616130529/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/jan/26/martinamis.film |url-status=live }}</ref>

''[[Success (novel)|Success]]'' (1977) told the story of two foster-brothers, Gregory Riding and Terry Service, and their rising and falling fortunes. This was the first example of Amis's fondness for symbolically "pairing" characters in his novels, which has been a recurrent feature in his fiction since (Martin Amis and Martina Twain in ''Money'', Richard Tull and Gwyn Barry in ''The Information'', and Jennifer Rockwell and Mike Hoolihan in ''Night Train'').<ref>{{cite news |last1=Walter |first1=Natasha |title=If you have tears to shed, prepare to shed them – in a Martin Amis novel |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/1997/sep/11/fiction.martinamis |access-date=23 May 2023 |work=The Guardian |date=11 September 1997 |quote=[In ''Night Train''] we have the usual Amis pairing of an ugly, unlucky protagonist set against a beautiful, lucky one; the same pairing that we see in ''Success'' or ''The Information''. |archive-date=16 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240616131036/https://www.theguardian.com/books/1997/sep/11/fiction.martinamis |url-status=live }}</ref> During this period, because producer [[Stanley Donen]] detected an affinity between his story and the "debauched and nihilistic nature" of ''Dead Babies'',<ref>{{cite web |last1=Moss |first1=Gregory |title=Something Is Wrong on Saturn 3 – Making Of Saturn 3 |url=https://saturn3makingof.com/ |website=saturn3makingof.com |access-date=23 May 2023 |date=24 October 2012 |archive-date=23 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230523025146/https://saturn3makingof.com/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Amis was invited to work on the screenplay for the science-fiction film ''[[Saturn&nbsp;3]]'' (1980).<ref name="ESF">{{cite web |last1=Clute |first1=John |title=Amis, Martin |url=https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/amis_martin |website=The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction |publisher=London: SFE Ltd and Reading: Ansible Editions |date=22 May 2023 |access-date=22 May 2023 |archive-date=21 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230521064810/https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/amis_martin |url-status=live }}</ref> The film was far from a critical success,<ref>{{cite web |last1=Ebert |first1=Roger |title=Reviews: Saturn 3 |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/saturn-3-1980 |access-date=22 May 2023 |date=19 February 1980 |archive-date=22 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230522190543/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/saturn-3-1980 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="razzie">{{Cite web|url=http://www.razzies.com/forum/1980-razzie-nominees-winners_topic330.html|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20121206081210/http://www.razzies.com/forum/1980-razzie-nominees-winners_topic330.html|url-status=dead|title=Golden Raspberry Awards 1980)|archivedate=6 December 2012}}</ref> but Amis was able to draw on the experience for his fifth novel, ''Money'', published in 1984.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Bradshaw |first1=Peter |title=The BBC's Money adaptation plots a course to Saturn 3 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2010/may/05/money-martin-amis-saturn-3 |access-date=21 May 2023 |newspaper=The Guardian |date=5 May 2010 |archive-date=16 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240616131037/https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2010/may/05/money-martin-amis-saturn-3 |url-status=live }}</ref>

''[[Other People (novel)|Other People: A Mystery Story]]'' (1981) – the title is a reference to Sartre's ''[[Huis Clos]]'' – is about a young woman coming out of a coma. It was a transitional novel in that it was the first of Amis's to show authorial intervention in the [[Narrative mode|narrative voice]], and highly artificed language in the heroine's descriptions of everyday objects, which was said to be influenced by his contemporary [[Craig Raine]]'s [[Martian poetry|"Martian" school of poetry]].<ref name="ESF"/> It was also the first novel Amis published after committing to being a full-time writer in 1980.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Turner |first1=Jenny |title=The Amis Papers |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/23/books/the-amis-papers.html |access-date=21 May 2023 |newspaper=The New York Times |date=3 December 2001 |archive-date=21 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230521171509/https://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/23/books/the-amis-papers.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

==Main career==

===1980s and 1990s===
Amis's best-known novels are ''[[Money (novel)|Money]]'', ''[[London Fields (novel)|London Fields]]'' and ''[[The Information (novel)|The Information]]'', commonly referred to as his "London Trilogy".<ref>Stringer, Jenny. [https://books.google.com/books?id=5Vr1RWniW_YC&pg=PA18 Martin Amis] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240616131037/https://books.google.com/books?id=5Vr1RWniW_YC&pg=PA18 |date=16 June 2024 }}, ''The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-century Literature in English''. Oxford University Press, 1996.</ref> Although the books share little in terms of plot and narrative, they all examine the lives of middle-aged men, exploring the sordid, debauched, and post-apocalyptic undercurrents of life in late 20th-century Britain. Amis's London [[protagonist]]s are anti-heroes: they engage in questionable behaviour, are passionate iconoclasts, and strive to escape the apparent banality and futility of their lives. Amis wrote, "The world is like a human being. And there's a scientific name for it, which is [[entropy]] – everything tends towards disorder. From an ordered state to a disordered state."<ref>McGrath, Patrick [http://bombsite.com/issues/18/articles/874 "Martin Amis"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130316150050/http://bombsite.com/issues/18/articles/874 |date=16 March 2013 }}, ''[[Bomb (magazine)|Bomb]]'', Winter, 1987.</ref>

''Money'' (1984, subtitled ''A Suicide Note'') is a first-person narrative by John Self, advertising man and would-be film director, who is "addicted to the twentieth century". "[A] satire of Thatcherite amorality and greed",<ref>[https://literature.britishcouncil.org/writer/martin-amis "Martin Amis"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304114148/https://literature.britishcouncil.org/writer/martin-amis |date=4 March 2016 }}, British Council: Literature. Retrieved 12 January 2016.</ref> the novel relates a series of black comedic episodes as Self flies back and forth across the Atlantic, in crass and seemingly chaotic pursuit of personal and professional success. ''[[Time Magazine|Time]]'' included the novel in its list of the 100 best English-language novels of 1923 to 2005.<ref>[[Lev Grossman]] and Richard Lacayo. [https://web.archive.org/web/20051019053903/http://www.time.com/time/2005/100books/the_complete_list.html "All Time 100 Novels"], ''Time'', 2005.</ref> On 11 November 2009, ''The Guardian'' reported that the [[BBC]] had [[Money (British TV series)|adapted ''Money'' for television]] as part of its early 2010 schedule for [[BBC 2]].<ref
name="guardian.co.uk">{{cite news | url=https://www.theguardian.com/media/2009/nov/11/nick-frost-bbc2-martin-amis-money | work=The Guardian | location=London | title=Nick Frost to star in BBC2 adaptation of Martin Amis's Money | first=John | last=Plunkett | date=11 November 2009 | access-date=27 March 2010 | archive-date=16 June 2024 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240616131038/https://www.theguardian.com/media/2009/nov/11/nick-frost-bbc2-martin-amis-money | url-status=live }}</ref> [[Nick Frost]] played John Self, and the adaptation also featured [[Vincent Kartheiser]], [[Emma Pierson]] and [[Jerry Hall]].<ref name="guardian.co.uk"/> The adaptation was a "two-part drama" and was written by Tom Butterworth and Chris Hurford.<ref name="guardian.co.uk"/> After the transmission of the first of the two parts, Amis was quick to praise the adaptation, stating: "All the performances [were] without weak spots. I thought Nick Frost was absolutely extraordinary as John Self. He fills the character. It's a very unusual performance in that he's very funny, he's physically comic, but he's also strangely graceful, a pleasure to watch ... It looked very expensive even though it wasn't and that's a feat ... The earlier script I saw was disappointing [but] they took it back and worked on it and it's hugely improved. My advice was to use more of the language of the novel, the dialogue, rather than making it up."<ref>Wightman, Catriona (25 May 2010). [http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/news/a221753/martin-amis-praises-money-adaptation.html?rss "Martin Amis praises ''Money'' adaptation"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121021194304/http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tv/news/a221753/martin-amis-praises-money-adaptation.html?rss |date=21 October 2012 }}, ''[[Digital Spy]]''.</ref>
[[File:Martin Amis and creative writing (Interview 1990).mp3|thumb|Martin Amis talks about creative writing, his father and PR for books. (Interview 1990)]]
''London Fields'' (1989), Amis's longest and "most London" novel,<ref>{{cite news |last1=Self |first1=John |title=Martin Amis novels – ranked! |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/aug/24/martin-amis-novels-countdown-to-top-john-self |access-date=22 May 2023 |newspaper=The Guardian |date=24 August 2019 |archive-date=16 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240616131039/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/aug/24/martin-amis-novels-countdown-to-top-john-self |url-status=live }}</ref> describes the encounters between three main characters in London in 1999, as a climate disaster approaches. The characters have typically Amisian names and broad caricatured qualities: Keith Talent, the lower-class crook with a passion for darts; Nicola Six, a femme fatale who is determined to be murdered; and upper-class Guy Clinch, "the fool, the foil, the poor foal" who is destined to come between the other two.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Nelson |first1=Elizabeth |title=England's Screaming: The Apocalyptic Prescience of Martin Amis's 'London Fields,' 30 Years Later |url=https://www.theringer.com/2019/12/9/21002276/martin-amis-london-fields-novel-1989-30th-anniversary |website=The Ringer |access-date=22 May 2023 |date=9 December 2019 |archive-date=22 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230522154823/https://www.theringer.com/2019/12/9/21002276/martin-amis-london-fields-novel-1989-30th-anniversary |url-status=live }}</ref>

The book was controversially omitted from the Booker Prize shortlist in 1989, because two panel members, [[Maggie Gee (novelist)|Maggie Gee]] and Helen McNeil, disliked Amis's treatment of his female characters. "It was an incredible row," [[Martyn Goff]], the Booker's director, told ''The Independent''. "Maggie and Helen felt that Amis treated women appallingly in the book. That is not to say they thought books which treated women badly couldn't be good, they simply felt that the author should make it clear he didn't favour or bless that sort of treatment. Really, there were only two of them and they should have been outnumbered as the other three were in agreement, but such was the sheer force of their argument and passion that they won. [[David Lodge (author)|David [Lodge]]] has told me he regrets it to this day, he feels he failed somehow by not saying, 'It's two against three, Martin's on the list'."<ref>{{cite news|last=Wynn-Jones|first=Ros|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/time-to-publish-and-be-damned-1239074.html|title=Time to publish and be damned|newspaper=The Independent|date=14 September 1997|access-date=4 September 2017|archive-date=26 October 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161026170402/http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/time-to-publish-and-be-damned-1239074.html|url-status=live}}</ref> A [[London Fields (film)|2018 film of ''London Fields'']], on which Amis worked as a scriptwriter, suffered from a problematic production process and was critically and commercially unsuccessful.<ref>{{cite web |last=McClintock |first=Pamela |url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/box-office-amber-heards-london-fields-bombs-at-record-low-160k-1155714 |work=The Hollywood Reporter |title=Box Office: Star-Studded 'London Fields' Bombs With $160K, Near-Record Worst for a Wide Release |date=28 October 2018 |access-date=11 January 2019 |archive-date=28 October 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181028223011/https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/box-office-amber-heards-london-fields-bombs-at-record-low-160k-1155714 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Amis's 1991 novel, the short ''[[Time's Arrow (novel)|Time's Arrow]]'', was shortlisted for the [[Booker Prize]]. Notable for its backwards narrative, including dialogue in reverse, the novel is the autobiography of a [[Nazi concentration camp]] doctor. The reversal of the [[arrow of time]] in the novel, a technique borrowed from [[Kurt Vonnegut]]'s ''[[Slaughterhouse 5]]'' (1969) and [[Philip K. Dick]]'s ''[[Counter-Clock World]]'' (1967), is a narrative style that itself functions in Amis's hands as commentary on the [[Nazis]]' rationalisation of death and destruction as forces of creation with the resurrection of [[Nordic mythology]] in the service of German nation-building.<ref name="Harris1999">{{cite journal |last1=Harris |first1=Greg |title=Men Giving Birth to New World Orders: Martin Amis's "Time's Arrow" |journal=Studies in the Novel |year=1999 |volume=31 |issue=4 |pages=489–505 |jstor=29533359 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/29533359 |issn=0039-3827 |access-date=20 May 2023 |archive-date=20 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230520215840/https://www.jstor.org/stable/29533359 |url-status=live }}</ref>

''The Information'' (1995) was notable not so much for its critical success, but for the scandals surrounding its publication. The enormous advance of £500,000 (almost US$800,000) demanded and subsequently obtained by Amis<ref name="Sheppard1995">{{cite magazine |last1=Sheppard |first1=R. Z. |title=Sour Grapes, Bad Teeth |url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,982884,00.html |access-date=21 May 2023 |magazine=Time |date=1 May 1995 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230521002428/https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0%2C33009%2C982884%2C00.html |archive-date=21 May 2023}}</ref><ref name="Lyall1995">{{cite news |last1=Lyall |first1=Sarah |title=The New York Times: Book Review Search Article |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/02/01/home/amis-bigdeal.html |access-date=21 May 2023 |work=The New York Times |date=31 January 1995 |archive-date=21 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230521032252/https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/02/01/home/amis-bigdeal.html |url-status=live }}</ref> for the novel attracted what the author described as "an [[Eisteddfod]] of hostility" from writers and critics<ref name="Leith2014">{{cite news |last1=Leith |first1=Sam |title=Why we love to hate Martin Amis |newspaper=The Guardian |date=15 August 2014 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/aug/15/love-to-hate-martin-amis |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140815152958/http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/aug/15/love-to-hate-martin-amis |archive-date=15 August 2014}}</ref> after he abandoned his long-serving agent, [[Pat Kavanagh (agent)|Pat Kavanagh]], to be represented by the Harvard-educated [[Andrew Wylie (literary agent)|Andrew Wylie]].<ref name="McGrath2007">{{cite news |last1=McGrath |first1=Charles |title=The Amis Inheritance |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/magazine/22amises.t.html |access-date=21 May 2023 |work=The New York Times |date=22 April 2007 |archive-date=12 September 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120912050722/http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/magazine/22amises.t.html |url-status=live }}</ref> The split was by no means amicable; it created a rift between Amis and his long-time friend, [[Julian Barnes]], who was married to Kavanagh. According to Amis's autobiographical collection ''[[Experience (book)|Experience]]'' (2000), he and Barnes had not resolved their differences.<ref>Amis, Martin, ''Experience'' (2000), {{pp.|247–249}}.</ref> ''The Information'' itself deals with the relationship between a pair of British writers of fiction: one, a spectacularly successful purveyor of "airport novels", is envied by his friend, an equally unsuccessful writer of philosophical and generally abstruse prose.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Wilkinson |first1=Carl |title=Meet the elite who hit the million mark |url=https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/meet-the-elite-who-hit-the-million-mark-20120710-21tm6.html |access-date=22 May 2023 |work=The Sydney Morning Herald |date=11 July 2012 |archive-date=22 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230522052649/https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/meet-the-elite-who-hit-the-million-mark-20120710-21tm6.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

Amis's 1997 short novel ''[[Night Train (novel)|Night Train]]'' is narrated by Mike Hoolihan, a tough woman detective with a man's name. The story revolves around the suicide of her boss's young, beautiful, and seemingly happy daughter. ''Night Train'' is written in the language of American '[[Noir fiction|noir]]' crime fiction, but subverts expectations of an exciting investigation and neat, satisfying ending.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Stolarek |first1=Joanna |title=Martin Amis's Night Train: a Pastiche of the Classical Detective Story or Hard-Boiling Metaphysics? |journal=Anglica Debating Literature and Culture |year=2009 |volume=17 |pages=139–151 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280558687 |quote=Night Train does not conform to the standards of the crime novel due to the absence of crime and a genuine culprit. |access-date=23 May 2023 |archive-date=16 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240616131040/https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280558687_Martin_Amis's_Night_Train_a_Pastiche_of_the_Classical_Detective_Story_or_Hard-Boiling_Metaphysics |url-status=live }}</ref> Many reviewers subjected it to negative criticism, e.g., [[John Updike]] "hated" it, but others such as Jason Crowley writing in ''[[Prospect (magazine)|Prospect]]'' have applauded his attempt to write in an American idiom<ref name="Cowley1997">{{cite magazine |last1=Cowley |first1=Jason |author-link=Jason Cowley (journalist)|title=Fictional failure |url=https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/essays/55440/fictional-failure |access-date=22 May 2023 |magazine=Prospect |date=20 December 1997 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230522035041/https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/essays/55440/fictional-failure |archive-date=22 May 2023}}</ref> and Beata Piątek wanted "to discuss ''Night Train'' as more than a clumsy spoof detective story and argue that it is an intellectual and intertextual joke that Amis plays on the critics who compare him with the American writers and criticise him for his sexist portrayal of women."<ref name="Piątek2004">{{cite book |last1=Piątek |first1=Beata |editor1-last=Mazur |editor1-first=Zygmunt |editor2-last=Richard |editor2-first=Utz |title=Homo Narrans: Texts and Essays in Honor of Jerome Klinkowitz |date=2004 |publisher=Jagiellonian University Press |page=158 |url=https://ruj.uj.edu.pl/xmlui/bitstream/handle/item/277155/piatek_bullshit_tv_conversations_or_intertextuality_in_night_train_2004.pdf |chapter=Bullshit TV Conversations' or Intertextuality in Night Train |access-date=22 May 2023 |archive-date=22 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230522043941/https://ruj.uj.edu.pl/xmlui/bitstream/handle/item/277155/piatek_bullshit_tv_conversations_or_intertextuality_in_night_train_2004.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref> The novel found other defenders too, notably in Janis Bellow, wife of Amis's mentor and friend [[Saul Bellow]].<ref>{{cite journal|first=Janis Freedman|last=Bellow|url=https://martinamisweb.com/pre_2006/jfntreview.htm|title=Second Thoughts on ''Night Train''|journal=The Republic of Letters|volume=4|date=May 1998|pages=25–29|access-date=21 May 2023|archive-date=21 May 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230521084220/https://martinamisweb.com/pre_2006/jfntreview.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> It was adapted for the cinema in 2018 as ''[[Out of Blue]]''.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Bradshaw |first1=Peter |title=Out of Blue review – Carol Morley |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/sep/08/out-of-blue-review-carol-morley |access-date=22 May 2023 |newspaper=The Guardian |date=8 September 2018 |archive-date=16 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240616131040/https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/sep/08/out-of-blue-review-carol-morley |url-status=live }}</ref>

===2000s===
The 2000s were Amis's least productive decade in terms of full-length fiction since starting in the 1970s (two novels in ten years), while his non-fiction work saw a dramatic increase in volume (three published works including a memoir, a hybrid of semi-memoir and amateur political history, and another journalism collection). In 2000, Amis published the memoir ''[[Experience (book)|Experience]]'', largely concerned with the relationship between the author and his father, the novelist Kingsley Amis. Amis describes his reunion with his daughter, Delilah Seale, resulting from an affair in the 1970s, whom he did not see until she was 19. Amis also discusses, at length, the murder of his cousin [[Lucy Partington]] by [[Fred West]] when she was 21.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Shaffi |first1=Sarah |title=Martin Amis, era-defining British novelist, dies aged 73 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/may/20/martin-amis-era-defining-british-novelist-dies-aged-73 |access-date=21 May 2023 |newspaper=The Guardian |date=20 May 2023 |archive-date=21 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230521094012/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/may/20/martin-amis-era-defining-british-novelist-dies-aged-73 |url-status=live }}</ref> The book was awarded the [[James Tait Black Memorial Prize]] for biography.<ref>{{cite web |author1=Edinburgh University |title=Winners of the James Tait Black Prize for Biography |date=25 August 2022 |url=https://www.ed.ac.uk/events/james-tait-black/winners/biography |access-date=21 May 2023 |archive-date=19 October 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201019065340/https://www.ed.ac.uk/events/james-tait-black/winners/biography |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 2002, Amis published ''[[Koba the Dread]]'', a devastating history of the crimes of [[Stalin]] and the denial that they received from many writers and academics in the West. The book precipitated a literary controversy for its approach to the material and for its attack on Amis's long-time friend [[Christopher Hitchens]]. Amis accused Hitchens – who was once a committed leftist – of sympathy for Stalin and communism. Although Hitchens wrote a vituperative response to the book in ''[[The Atlantic]]'', his friendship with Amis emerged unchanged: in response to a reporter's question, Amis responded, "We never needed to make up. We had an adult exchange of views, mostly in print, and that was that (or, more exactly, that goes on being that). My friendship with the Hitch has always been perfectly cloudless. It is a love whose month is ever May."<ref>[http://news.independent.co.uk/people/profiles/article2154795.ece "Martin Amis: You Ask The Questions"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070304044504/http://news.independent.co.uk/people/profiles/article2154795.ece |date=4 March 2007 }}, ''The Independent'', 15 January 2007.</ref>

In 2003, Amis published ''[[Yellow Dog (novel)|Yellow Dog]]'', his first novel in six years. The book received mixed reviews, with some critics proclaiming the novel a return to form, but its reception was mostly negative.<ref name="TheTimes2023">{{cite news |title=Martin Amis, literary giant, dies aged 73 |url=https://www.thetimes.com/culture/books/article/martin-amis-novelist-dies-aged-73-v37s53dbw |newspaper=[[The Times]]|date=20 May 2023 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230521012357/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/martin-amis-novelist-dies-aged-73-v37s53dbw |archive-date=21 May 2023}}</ref> The novelist [[Tibor Fischer]] denounced it: "''Yellow Dog'' isn't bad as in not very good or slightly disappointing. It's not-knowing-where-to-look bad. I was reading my copy on the Tube and I was terrified someone would look over my shoulder&nbsp;... It's like your favourite uncle being caught in a school playground, masturbating."<ref>{{cite news |first=Tibor |last=Fischer |date=4 August 2003 |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3594613/Someone-needs-to-have-a-word-with-Amis.html |title=Someone needs to have a word with Amis |newspaper=[[The Daily Telegraph]] |access-date=2 April 2018 |archive-date=31 July 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180731000603/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3594613/Someone-needs-to-have-a-word-with-Amis.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Amis was unrepentant about the novel and its reaction, calling ''Yellow Dog'' "among my best three". He gave his own explanation for the novel's critical failure: "No one wants to read a difficult literary novel or deal with a prose style which reminds them how thick they are. There's a push towards egalitarianism, making writing more chummy and interactive, instead of a higher voice, and that's what I go to literature for."<ref>Muir, Kate (13 September 2003), [https://martinamisweb.com/pre_2006/ydltinterview.htm "Amis needs a drink"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230521091434/https://martinamisweb.com/pre_2006/ydltinterview.htm |date=21 May 2023 }}, ''The Times''; via martinamisweb.com.</ref> ''Yellow Dog'' "controversially made the 13-book longlist for the 2003 Booker Prize, despite some scathing reviews", but failed to win the award.<ref>{{cite news |first=Luke |last=Leitch |date=16 September 2003 |url=http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/showbiz/article-6732841-booker-snubs-amis-again.do |title=Booker snubs Amis, again |newspaper=Evening Standard |access-date=27 October 2009 |archive-date=6 June 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110606122132/http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/showbiz/article-6732841-booker-snubs-amis-again.do |url-status=dead }}.</ref> Following the harsh reviews afforded to ''Yellow Dog'', Amis relocated from London to the beach resort of [[José Ignacio, Uruguay]], with his family for two years, during which time he worked on his next novel away from the glare and pressures of the London literary scene.<ref>{{cite web |title=Amis and Uruguay |url=https://martinamisweb.com/biography_files/ma_uruguay.doc |website=Martin Amis Web |access-date=21 May 2023 |archive-date=21 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230521051441/https://martinamisweb.com/biography_files/ma_uruguay.doc |url-status=live }}</ref>

In September 2006, upon his return from Uruguay, Amis published his eleventh novel. ''[[House of Meetings]]'', a short work, continued the author's crusade against the crimes of [[Stalinism]] and also focused some consideration on the state of contemporary post-Soviet Russia. The novel centres on the relationship between two brothers incarcerated in a prototypical Siberian [[gulag]] who, prior to their deportation, had loved the same woman.<ref>{{cite news |title=Culture / New fiction: Martin Amis |url=https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2006/10/12/comeback-man |access-date=21 May 2023 |newspaper=The Economist |date=12 October 2006 |archive-date=21 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230521163156/https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2006/10/12/comeback-man |url-status=live }}</ref> ''House of Meetings'' saw some better critical notices than ''Yellow Dog'' had received three years before,<ref>{{cite news |title=Comeback man |url=https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2006/10/12/comeback-man |access-date=23 May 2023 |newspaper=The Economist |date=12 October 2006 |archive-date=24 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230524052510/https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2006/10/12/comeback-man |url-status=live }}</ref> but there were still some reviewers who felt that Amis's fiction work had considerably declined in quality.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Anderson |first1=Sam |title=Amisérable |url=https://nymag.com/arts/books/reviews/26545/ |access-date=23 May 2023 |work=[[New York (magazine)|New York]] |date=11 January 2007 |archive-date=23 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230523011617/https://nymag.com/arts/books/reviews/26545/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Despite the praise for ''House of Meetings'', once again Amis was overlooked for the Booker Prize longlist. According to a piece in ''[[The Independent]]'', the novel "was originally to have been collected alongside two short stories – one, a disturbing account of the life of a body-double in the court of [[Saddam Hussein]]; the other, the imagined final moments of [[Muhammad Atta]], the leader of the [[11 September attacks]] – but late in the process, Amis decided to jettison both from the book."<ref name="independent.co.uk">{{cite news | url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/martin-amis-30-things-ive-learned-about-terror-418950.html | work=The Independent | location=London | title=Martin Amis: 30 things I've learned about terror | first=Alex | last=Bilmes | date=8 October 2006 | access-date=12 May 2010 | archive-date=25 June 2010 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100625003607/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/martin-amis-30-things-ive-learned-about-terror-418950.html | url-status=live }}</ref> The same article asserts that Amis had recently abandoned a novella, ''The Unknown Known'' (inspired by a phase used by [[Donald Rumsfeld]]), in which Muslim terrorists unleash a horde of compulsive rapists on [[Greeley, Colorado]].<ref name="independent.co.uk"/>{{refn|group=n|As Amis explains in his essay "The Age of Horrorism" (reprinted in an amended form as "Terror and Boredom" in ''The Second Plane''), he chose the US city of Greeley, Colorado, on account of its connection with [[Sayyid Qutb]] and the development of his jihadist convictions.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Amis |first1=Martin |title=The age of horrorism |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/sep/10/september11.politicsphilosophyandsociety |access-date=23 May 2023 |work=The Guardian |date=10 September 2006 |archive-date=16 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240616131544/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/sep/10/september11.politicsphilosophyandsociety |url-status=live }}</ref>}} Instead he continued to work on a follow-up full novel that he had started working on in 2003:<ref name="ChatfieldProspect">{{cite journal |first=Tom |last=Chatfield |date=4 May 2009 |url=https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/culture/books-and-literature/52978/martin-amis-will-he-return-to-form |title=Martin Amis: will he return to form? |journal=Prospect |access-date=23 May 2023 |archive-date=23 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230523015217/https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/culture/books-and-literature/52978/martin-amis-will-he-return-to-form |url-status=dead }}</ref>

{{blockquote|
The novel I'm working on is blindingly autobiographical, but with an Islamic theme. It's called ''A Pregnant Widow'', because at the end of a revolution you don't have a newborn child, you have a pregnant widow. And the pregnant widow in this novel is feminism. Which is still in its second trimester. The child is nowhere in sight yet. And I think it has several more convulsions to undergo before we'll see the child.<ref name="independent.co.uk"/>
}}

The new novel took some considerable time to write: in 2008, Amis made the "terrible decision" to abandon his first version and a much-different ''Pregnant Widow'' was not published until 2010.<ref name=Bilmes2>Bilmes, Alex. [https://web.archive.org/web/20100204023827/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/7134959/Martin-Amis-Women-have-got-too-much-power-for-their-own-good.html Martin Amis: 'Women have got too much power for their own good'], ''The Daily Telegraph'', 2 February 2010.</ref> Instead, Amis's last published work of the 2000s was the 2008 journalism collection ''[[The Second Plane]]'', a collection which compiled Amis's many writings on the events of [[9/11]] and the subsequent major events and cultural issues resulting from the [[war on terror]]. The reception to ''The Second Plane'' was decidedly mixed, with some reviewers finding its tone intelligent and well reasoned, while others believed it to be overly stylised and lacking in authoritative knowledge of key areas under consideration. The most common consensus was that the two short stories included were the weakest point of the collection. The collection sold relatively well but was not well received, particularly in the United States.<ref name="Keulks2011">{{cite book |last1=Keulks |first1=Gavin |editor1-last=Shaffer |editor1-first=Brian W. |title=The Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Fiction, 3 Volume Set |year=2011 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=978-1-4051-9244-6 |pages=13–15 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=am1PhEWMqdIC&pg=PA13 |access-date=24 May 2023 |archive-date=24 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230524032428/https://books.google.com/books?id=am1PhEWMqdIC&pg=PA13 |url-status=live }}</ref>

===2010s and 2020s===
In 2010, after a period of writing, rewriting, editing, and revision dating back to 2003, "by far the longest writing-time of all [his] books",<ref name="ChatfieldProspect"/> Amis published ''[[The Pregnant Widow]]'', a long novel concerned with the [[sexual revolution]].<ref>{{cite news |last1=Adams |first1=Tim |title=Review: The Pregnant Widow by Martin Amis |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/jan/31/pregnant-widow-martin-amis-review |access-date=23 May 2023 |newspaper=The Guardian |date=31 January 2010 |archive-date=16 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240616131543/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/jan/31/pregnant-widow-martin-amis-review |url-status=live }}</ref> Its title is based on a quote from [[Alexander Herzen]]: "The death of the contemporary forms of social order ought to gladden rather than trouble the soul. Yet what is frightening is that what the departing world leaves behind it is not an heir but a pregnant widow. Between the death of the one and the birth of the other, much water will flow by, a long night of chaos and desolation will pass."<ref>{{cite book|title=The Pregnant Widow: Amazon.co.uk: Martin Amis: 9780224076128: Books|id={{ASIN|0224076124|country=uk}} {{ASIN|0224076124|country=uk}}}}</ref>

The first public reading of the then just completed version of ''The Pregnant Widow'' occurred on 11 May 2009 as part of the Norwich and Norfolk festival.<ref name="writerscentrenorwich.org.uk">Katy Carr (11 May 2009). [http://www.writerscentrenorwich.org.uk/Content1161.aspx "Amis reads ''The Pregnant Widow''] {{webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20121225040656/http://www.writerscentrenorwich.org.uk/Content1161.aspx |date=25 December 2012}}</ref> At this reading, according to the coverage of the event for the [[Writers' Centre Norwich]] by Katy Carr, "the writing shows a return to comic form, as the narrator muses on the indignities of facing the mirror as an ageing man, in a prelude to a story set in Italy in 1970, looking at the effect of the sexual revolution on personal relationships. The sexual revolution was the moment, as Amis sees it, that love became divorced from sex. He said he started to write the novel autobiographically, but then concluded that real life was too different from fiction and difficult to drum into novel shape, so he had to rethink the form."<ref name="writerscentrenorwich.org.uk"/>

The story is set in a castle owned by a cheese tycoon in [[Campania]], Italy, where Keith Nearing, a 20-year-old English literature student; his girlfriend, Lily; and her friend, Scheherazade, are on holiday during the hot summer of 1970, the year that Amis says "something was changing in the world of men and women".<ref name=Long>{{cite news |last=Long |first=Camilla |title=Martin Amis and the sex war |url=http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article6996980.ece?token=null&offset=0&page=1 |newspaper=[[The Times]] |date=24 January 2010 |access-date=29 August 2012 |archive-date=24 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230524183343/http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article6996980.ece?token=null&offset=0&page=1 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Kemp |first=Peter |title=The Pregnant Widow by Martin Amis |url=http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/fiction/article7004587.ece |newspaper=The Sunday Times |date=31 January 2010 |access-date=29 August 2012 |archive-date=16 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240616131544/https://www.the-tls.co.uk/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> The narrator is Keith's [[superego]], or conscience, in 2009. Keith's sister, Violet, is based on Amis's own sister, [[Sally Amis|Sally]], described by Amis as one of the revolution's most spectacular victims.<ref>{{cite news |last=Flood |first=Alison |title=Martin Amis says new novel will get him 'in trouble with the feminists' |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/nov/20/martin-amis-novel-feminists-sister |newspaper=The Guardian |date=20 November 2009 |access-date=12 December 2016 |archive-date=21 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230521051621/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/nov/20/martin-amis-novel-feminists-sister |url-status=live }}</ref>

Published in a whirl of publicity the likes of which Amis had not received for a novel since the publication of ''The Information'' in 1995, ''The Pregnant Widow'' was met by searing criticism, accusations of sexism, and guessing the real-world identity of its characters.<ref name="Cole2010">{{cite news |last=Cole |first=Olivia |title=England's Punching Bag: Martin Amis |url=https://www.thedailybeast.com/englands-punching-bag-martin-amis |access-date=24 May 2023 |work=The Daily Beast |year=2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210411115840/https://www.thedailybeast.com/englands-punching-bag-martin-amis |archive-date=11 April 2021}}</ref> Despite a vast amount of coverage, some positive reviews, and a general expectation that Amis's time for recognition had come, the novel was overlooked for the [[2010 Man Booker Prize]] longlist. In 2010, Martin Amis was named ''[[GQ]]'' writer of the year.<ref>{{cite web |date=29 March 2012 |title=The winners |url=https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/gallery/gq-men-of-the-year-2010-winners |access-date=23 May 2023 |website=British GQ |language=en-GB |archive-date=9 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230709190155/https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/gallery/gq-men-of-the-year-2010-winners |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 2012 Amis published ''[[Lionel Asbo: State of England]]''. The novel is centred on the lives of Desmond Pepperdine and his uncle Lionel Asbo, a voracious lout and persistent convict; for the benefit of his US readers, Amis explained the [[Anti-social behaviour order|origin of the latter's surname]] in an interview with [[NPR]].<ref>{{cite news |title=The 'State Of England' Is Grim In 'Lionel Asbo' |url=https://www.npr.org/2012/08/19/158949192/the-state-of-england-is-grim-in-lionel-asbo |access-date=23 May 2023 |publisher=NPR |date=16 August 2012 |archive-date=16 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240616131544/https://www.npr.org/2012/08/19/158949192/the-state-of-england-is-grim-in-lionel-asbo |url-status=live }}</ref> It is set against the fictional borough of Diston Town, a grotesque version of modern-day Britain under the reign of celebrity culture, and follows the dramatic events in the lives of both characters: Desmond's gradual erudition and maturing; and Lionel's fantastic lottery win of almost £140&nbsp;million. Much to the interest of the press, Amis announced that the character of Lionel Asbo's eventual girlfriend, the ambitious glamour model and poet "Threnody" (quotation marks included), had been created to honour the British celebrity [[Jordan (Katie Price)|Jordan]],<ref>{{cite news |last=Burchill |first=Julie |author-link=Julie Burchill |title=Amis and Jordan – a marriage made only in his overheated imagination |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/columnists/julie-burchill/julie-burchill-amis-and-jordan-ndash-a-marriage-made-only-in-his-overheated-imagination-2085827.html |access-date=23 May 2023 |work=The Independent |date=22 September 2010 |archive-date=16 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240616131544/https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/columnists/julie-burchill/julie-burchill-amis-and-jordan-ndash-a-marriage-made-only-in-his-overheated-imagination-2085827.html |url-status=live }}</ref> whom he had a few years earlier summed up as "two bags of silicone".<ref>{{cite news |last=Edelstein |first=Jean Hannah |title=Martin Amis's problem is not Katie Price, but women |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2009/oct/28/martin-amis-katie-price-women |access-date=23 May 2023 |newspaper=The Guardian |date=28 October 2009 |archive-date=16 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240616131545/https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2009/oct/28/martin-amis-katie-price-women |url-status=live }}</ref> In an interview with ''[[Newsnight]]''{{'}}s [[Jeremy Paxman]], Amis said the novel was "not a frowning examination of England" but a comedy based on a "fairytale world", adding that ''Lionel Asbo: State of England'' was not an attack on the country, insisting he was "proud of being English" and viewed the nation with affection.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/entertainment-arts-18436829|title=Martin Amis: We lead the world in decline|work=BBC News|date=14 June 2012|access-date=20 June 2018|archive-date=25 September 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150925155642/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-18436829|url-status=live}}</ref> Reviews, once again, were mixed.

Amis's 2014 novel ''[[The Zone of Interest (novel)|The Zone of Interest]]'' concerns the [[Holocaust]], his second work of fiction to tackle the subject after ''[[Time's Arrow (novel)|Time's Arrow]]''.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/hay-festival/9282488/Hay-Festival-2012-Martin-Amis-over-60-and-under-appreciated.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/hay-festival/9282488/Hay-Festival-2012-Martin-Amis-over-60-and-under-appreciated.html |archive-date=12 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|title=Hay Festival 2012: Martin Amis: over-60 and under-appreciated|date=10 June 2012|work=The Daily Telegraph}}{{cbignore}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.newstribune.com/news/2012/sep/14/amis-america-talk-british-author/|title=Amis in America: A talk with the British author|first=Hillel|last=Italie|date=14 September 2023|work=newstribune.com|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://archive.today/20130129200942/http://www.newstribune.com/news/2012/sep/14/amis-america-talk-british-author/|archive-date=29 January 2013}}</ref> In it, Amis endeavoured to imagine the social and domestic lives of the Nazi officers who ran the death camps, and the effect their indifference to human suffering had on their general psychology. It was shortlisted for the 2015 [[Walter Scott Prize]] for historical fiction<ref>{{cite web |title=2015 Shortlist announced |url=https://www.walterscottprize.co.uk/2015-shortlist-announced/ |website=Walter Scott Prize |access-date=22 May 2023 |date=24 March 2015 |archive-date=26 March 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150326174509/http://www.walterscottprize.co.uk/2015-shortlist-announced/ |url-status=live }}</ref> and [[The Zone of Interest (film)|a 2023 film]], "loosely based" on the novel, premiered to acclaim at the [[2023 Cannes Film Festival]], winning the [[Grand Prix (Cannes Film Festival)|Grand Prix]].<ref>{{cite web |last=Sharf |first=Zack |date=19 May 2023 |title=A24's Nazi Drama 'Zone of Interest' Is a Cannes Sensation With 6-Minute Standing Ovation |url=https://variety.com/2023/film/news/the-zone-of-interest-cannes-standing-ovation-nazi-1235618840/ |access-date=21 May 2023 |website=Variety |language=en-US |archive-date=26 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230526194955/https://variety.com/2023/film/news/the-zone-of-interest-cannes-standing-ovation-nazi-1235618840/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |date=27 May 2023 |title=Grand prix - THE ZONE OF INTEREST by Jonathan GLAZER |url=https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/medialibrary/grand-prix-the-zone-of-interest-by-jonathan-glazer/ |access-date=28 May 2023 |website=Festival de Cannes |language=en-US |archive-date=28 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230528111548/https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/medialibrary/grand-prix-the-zone-of-interest-by-jonathan-glazer/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

In December 2016, Amis announced two new projects. The first, a collection of journalism, titled ''[[The Rub of Time|The Rub of Time: Bellow, Nabokov, Hitchens, Travolta, Trump. Essays and Reportage, 1986–2016]]'', was published in October 2017.<ref name="Kean-2016">{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/dec/07/martin-amis-working-on-novel-about-christopher-hitchens-saul-bellow-and-philip-larkin|title=Martin Amis working on novel about Christopher Hitchens, Saul Bellow and Philip Larkin|first=Danuta|last=Kean|date=7 December 2016|work=The Guardian|access-date=13 January 2017|archive-date=16 June 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240616131546/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/dec/07/martin-amis-working-on-novel-about-christopher-hitchens-saul-bellow-and-philip-larkin|url-status=live}}</ref> The second project, a new untitled novel which Amis was working on, was an autobiographical novel about three key literary figures in his life: the poet [[Philip Larkin]], American novelist [[Saul Bellow]], and noted public intellectual [[Christopher Hitchens]].<ref name="Kean-2016" /> In an interview with [[livemint.com]], Amis said of the novel-in-progress, "I'm writing an autobiographical novel that I've been trying to write for 15 years. It's not so much about me, it's about three other writers – a poet, a novelist and an essayist ... and since I started trying to write it, Larkin died in 1985, Bellow died in 2005, and Hitch died in 2011, and that gives me a theme, death, and it gives me a bit more freedom, and fiction is freedom. It's hard going but the one benefit is that I have the freedom to invent things. I don't have them looking over my shoulder anymore."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.livemint.com/Leisure/5zJiX0HYDYnfbZWwDEIi8H/A-conversation-with-Martin-Amis.html|title=A conversation with Martin Amis|first=Tishani|last=Doshi|website=Mint|date=2 December 2016|access-date=13 January 2017|archive-date=16 January 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170116145719/http://www.livemint.com/Leisure/5zJiX0HYDYnfbZWwDEIi8H/A-conversation-with-Martin-Amis.html|url-status=live}}</ref> The finished product, ''[[Inside Story (novel)|Inside Story]]'' – his first novel in six years – was published in September 2020.<ref name="penguin.co.uk">{{Cite web|url=https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2020/feb/martin-amis-inside-story/|title=Martin Amis' new autobiographical novel 'Inside Story' will be his 'most intimate and epic work to date'|date=12 February 2020|publisher=Penguin|access-date=22 February 2020|archive-date=22 February 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200222193015/https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2020/feb/martin-amis-inside-story/|url-status=live}}</ref>

===Other work===
Amis released two collections of short stories (''[[Einstein's Monsters]]'' and ''[[Heavy Water and Other Stories|Heavy Water]]'') and five volumes of collected journalism and criticism (''[[The Moronic Inferno]]'', ''[[Visiting Mrs Nabokov]]'', ''[[The War Against Cliché]]'', ''[[The Second Plane]]'' and ''[[The Rub of Time]]'').<ref name="ESF"/> While he was writing ''Money'', he wrote a guide to arcade video games of the 1970s and 1980s, ''[[Invasion of the Space Invaders]]''.<ref name="invaders">{{Cite web |url=http://www.themillions.com/2012/02/the-arcades-project-martin-amis-guide-to-classic-video-games.html |title=The Arcades Project: Martin Amis' Guide to Classic Video Games |last=O'Connell |first=Mark |date=16 February 2012 |access-date=16 February 2012 |publisher=[[The Millions]] |archive-date=17 February 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120217213454/http://www.themillions.com/2012/02/the-arcades-project-martin-amis-guide-to-classic-video-games.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Lezard |first1=Nicholas |title=Video stars |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/mar/24/computingandthenet |access-date=22 May 2023 |newspaper=The Guardian |date=24 March 2001}}</ref>

Amis regularly appeared on television and radio discussion and debate programmes and contributed book reviews and articles to newspapers. His wife Isabel Fonseca released her debut novel ''Attachment'' in 2009 and two of Amis's children, his son Louis and his daughter Fernanda, have also been published in ''[[Standpoint (magazine)|Standpoint]]'' magazine and ''[[The Guardian]]'', respectively.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.martinamisweb.com/days.shtml|title=The Martin Amis Web|work=martinamisweb.com|access-date=30 July 2009|archive-date=21 May 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230521050325/https://martinamisweb.com/days.shtml|url-status=dead}}</ref>

====University of Manchester====
In February 2007, Amis was appointed as a professor of creative writing at the [[Manchester Centre for New Writing]] at the [[University of Manchester]], where he started in September 2007. He ran postgraduate seminars, and participated in four public events each year, including a two-week summer school.<ref name="Topping200702"/>

Of his position, Amis said: "I may be acerbic in how I write but&nbsp;... I would find it very difficult to say cruel things to [students] in such a vulnerable position. I imagine I'll be surprisingly sweet and gentle with them."<ref name="Topping200702"/> He predicted that the experience might inspire him to write a new book, while adding sardonically: "A campus novel written by an elderly novelist, that's what the world wants."<ref name="Topping200702"/> It was revealed that the salary paid to Amis by the university was £80,000 a year in return for 28 contracted hours.<ref name = "Qureshi">{{cite news|last=Qureshi|first=Yakub|url=http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/1033752_3000_an_hour_for_amis |title=£3,000 an hour for Amis|work=[[Manchester Evening News]]| date=25 January 2008}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/jan/26/highereducation.books |title=Amis the £3k-an-hour professor|first=Maev|last=Kennedy|newspaper=The Guardian|date=26 January 2008}}</ref> The ''[[Manchester Evening News]]'' broke the story saying that according to his contract Amis was paid £3,000 an hour for 28 contracted hours a year teaching. The claim was echoed in headlines in several national papers.<ref name = "Qureshi"/>

In January 2011, it was announced that Amis would be stepping down from his university position at the end of the current academic year.<ref>{{cite news|first=Jonathan|last=Brown|date=22 January 2011|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/amis-writes-off-star-lecturer-job-2191257.html|title=Amis writes off star lecturer job|newspaper=The Independent|access-date=4 September 2017|archive-date=18 February 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190218055726/https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/amis-writes-off-star-lecturer-job-2191257.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Of his time teaching creative writing at the University of Manchester, Amis was quoted as saying, "teaching creative writing at Manchester has been a joy" and that he had "become very fond of my colleagues, especially John McAuliffe and [[Ian McGuire]]".<ref name="ReferenceA">{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-12300132|title=Colm Toibin to succeed Martin Amis in university role|work=BBC News|date=27 January 2011|access-date=20 June 2018|archive-date=10 May 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180510142909/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-12300132|url-status=live}}</ref> He added that he "loved doing all the reading and the talking; and I very much took to the Mancunians. They are a witty and tolerant contingent".<ref name="ReferenceA"/> Amis was succeeded in this position by the Irish writer [[Colm Tóibín]] in September 2011.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>

From October 2007 to July 2011, at the University of Manchester's [[Whitworth Hall]] and Cosmo Rodewald Concert Hall, Amis regularly engaged in public discussions with other experts on literature and various topics ([[21st-century literature]], terrorism, religion, [[Philip Larkin]], science, Britishness, suicide, sex, ageing, his 2010 novel ''The Pregnant Widow'', violence, film, the short story, and America).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.martinamisweb.com/events.shtml|title=The Martin Amis Web|work=martinamisweb.com|access-date=12 October 2010|archive-date=21 May 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230521050322/https://martinamisweb.com/events.shtml|url-status=dead}}</ref>

==Personal life==
Amis married the American academic Antonia Phillips in 1984 and they had two sons together. Towards the end of that marriage, he met the writer [[Isabel Fonseca]], whom he married in 1996; together they had two daughters.<ref name="GuardianObituary"/> He became a grandfather in 2008;<ref>Bradford 2012, {{p.|121}}.</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=My long lost dad, Martin Amis |url=https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/feb/26/delilah-jeary-martin-amis-father |access-date=23 May 2023 |work=The Guardian |date=6 February 2011}}</ref> he later described his new status as "like getting a telegram from the mortuary".<ref name = Garner />

From 2004 to 2006, he lived with his second family in Uruguay,<ref name="Topping200702">{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/feb/15/highereducation.topstories3|title=Students, meet your new tutor: Amis, the enfant terrible, turns professor|first=Alexandra |last=Topping|date=15 February 2007|access-date=23 February 2007|work=The Guardian|location=London|archive-date=19 February 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070219185448/http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,2013359,00.html|url-status=live}}</ref> where [[Gonzalo Fonseca|Fonseca's father]] had been born.<ref>{{cite web  |url = http://www.ceciliadetorres.com/gf/gf_bio.html  |title= Gonzalo Fonseca |first = Cecilia |last=de Torres |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110912010642/http://www.ceciliadetorres.com/gf/gf_bio.html |archive-date = 12 September 2011}}</ref> Upon returning, he said, "Some strange things have happened, it seems to me, in my absence. I didn't feel like I was getting more rightwing when I was in Uruguay, but when I got back I felt that I had moved quite a distance to the right while staying in the same place." He reported that he was disquieted by what he saw as increasingly undisguised hostility towards Israel and the United States.<ref name="Topping200702"/>

In late 2010, Amis bought a [[brownstone]] residence in [[Cobble Hill, Brooklyn]], US, although it was uncertain how much time he would be spending there.<ref>Kusisto, Laura (16 December 2010). [https://web.archive.org/web/20101218083901/http://www.observer.com/2010/real-estate/martin-amis-brooklyn-bound "Brit to Brobo! Martin Amis Buys in Cobble Hill"], ''The New York Observer''.</ref> In 2012, Amis wrote in ''[[The New Republic]]'' that he was "moving house" from [[Camden Town]] in London to Cobble Hill.<ref>Amis, Martin (23 August 2012). [http://www.tnr.com/article/magazine/politics/105714/martin-amis-hes-leaving-home "He's Leaving Home"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120808215759/http://www.tnr.com/article/magazine/politics/105714/martin-amis-hes-leaving-home |date=8 August 2012 }}, ''The New Republic''. Retrieved 6 August 2012.</ref> He also had a residence in [[Lake Worth Beach, Florida]], United States.<ref name = Garner/>

===Death===
Amis died from [[oesophageal cancer]] at his home in Florida on 19 May 2023. Like his father, he died at age 73.<ref name="Garner">{{Cite news |last=Garner |first=Dwight |date=20 May 2023 |title=Martin Amis, Acclaimed Author of Bleakly Comic Novels, Dies at 73 |language=en-US |volume=172 |pages=A1, A23 |work=The New York Times |issue=59795 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/20/books/martin-amis-dead.html |url-access=limited |access-date=20 May 2023 |issn=0362-4331 |archive-date=20 May 2023 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20230520185123/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/20/books/martin-amis-dead.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url = https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/may/20/martin-amis-era-defining-british-novelist-dies-aged-73|title = Martin Amis, era-defining British novelist, dies aged 73|last = Shaffi|first = Sarah|date = 20 May 2023|accessdate = 20 May 2023|newspaper = [[The Guardian]]|archive-date = 21 May 2023|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20230521094012/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/may/20/martin-amis-era-defining-british-novelist-dies-aged-73|url-status = live}}</ref> Amis was a life-long smoker.<ref>{{cite news|url = https://www.wsj.com/articles/martin-amis-returns-with-zone-of-interest-1410463847?mod=article_inline|title = Martin Amis Returns With 'Zone of Interest'|last = Cronin|first = Brenda|date = 11 September 2014|accessdate = 20 May 2023|newspaper = [[The Wall Street Journal]]|url-access = subscription|archive-date = 21 May 2023|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20230521035352/https://www.wsj.com/articles/martin-amis-returns-with-zone-of-interest-1410463847?mod=article_inline|url-status = live}}</ref>

Amis was [[Knight Bachelor|knighted]] in the [[2023 Birthday Honours|2023 King's Birthday Honours]] for services to literature, and the knighthood was  backdated to the day before his death.<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=64082|supp=y|page=B2|date=17 June 2023}}</ref>

==Views==
[[Image:Martin Amis and Ian Buruma on Monsters.jpg|right|thumb|Amis conversing with [[Ian Buruma]] about ''[[Einstein's Monsters|Monsters]]'' at the 2007 ''[[The New Yorker|New Yorker]]'' Festival<ref>{{cite video |people=Martin Amis, [[Ian Buruma]] |title=Monsters |date=5 October 2007 |url=http://www.newyorker.com/online/video/festival/2007/AmisBuruma |format=flash |medium=Conversation |work=[[The New Yorker]] |location=New York City |access-date=8 March 2008 |archive-date=7 March 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080307004845/http://www.newyorker.com/online/video/festival/2007/AmisBuruma |url-status=live }}</ref>]]

===Writing===
On writing, Amis said in 2014: "I think of writing as more mysterious as I get older, not less mysterious. The whole process is very weird&nbsp;... It is very spooky."<ref>{{cite news|first=Brenda|last=Cronin|url=https://online.wsj.com/articles/martin-amis-returns-with-zone-of-interest-1410463847|title=Martin Amis Returns With 'Zone of Interest'|newspaper=The Wall Street Journal|date=11 September 2014|access-date=14 March 2017|archive-date=14 September 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140914032324/http://online.wsj.com/articles/martin-amis-returns-with-zone-of-interest-1410463847|url-status=live}}</ref>

Interviewed by [[Sebastian Faulks]] on BBC television in 2011, he said that unless he sustained a [[brain injury]], it was unlikely he would write a children's book: "The idea of being conscious of who you're directing the story to is anathema to me, because, in my view, fiction is freedom and any restraints on that are intolerable ... I would never write about someone that forced me to write at a lower register than what I can write."<ref>{{cite news |last=Page |first=Benedicte |title=Martin Amis: Only brain injury could make me write for children |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/feb/11/martin-amis-brain-injury-write-children |access-date=25 May 2023 |work=The Guardian |date=11 February 2011}}</ref> The "brain injury" remark caused opprobrium among various children's authors, although the poet [[Roger McGough]] wagered that "if I gave him £100 to write a children's book I bet he'd do a good one".<ref>{{cite news |last=Sharp |first=Rob |title=Amis: I'd write for children only if I'd had a brain injury |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/amis-i-rsquo-d-write-for-children-only-if-i-d-had-a-brain-injury-2212493.html |access-date=25 May 2023 |work=The Independent |date=12 February 2011 |archive-date=25 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230525005340/https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/amis-i-rsquo-d-write-for-children-only-if-i-d-had-a-brain-injury-2212493.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Nuclear proliferation===
Through the 1980s and 1990s, Amis was a strong critic of [[nuclear proliferation]]. His collection of five stories on this theme, ''Einstein's Monsters'', began with a long essay entitled "Thinkability" in which he set out his views on the issue,<ref name="Bentley2015">{{cite book |last1=Bentley |first1=Nick |title=Martin Amis |year=2015 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-7463-1178-3 |page=58 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZYdNEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA58 |access-date=21 May 2023 |archive-date=21 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230521042209/https://books.google.com/books?id=ZYdNEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA58 |url-status=live }}</ref> writing: "[[Nuclear weapons]] repel all thought, perhaps because they can end all thought."<ref name="Joyce2019">{{cite book |last1=Joyce |first1=Ashlee |title=The Gothic in Contemporary British Trauma Fiction |year=2019 |publisher=Springer Nature |isbn=978-3-030-26728-5 |page=43 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kK6tDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA43 |access-date=21 May 2023 |archive-date=21 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230521042207/https://books.google.com/books?id=kK6tDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA43 |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Geopolitics===
In comments on the BBC in October 2006, Amis expressed his view that North Korea was the more dangerous of the two remaining members of the [[Axis of Evil]], but that Iran was Britain's "natural enemy", suggesting that Britain should not feel bad about having "helped Iraq scrape a draw with Iran" in the [[Iran–Iraq War]] because a "revolutionary and rampant Iran would have been a much more destabilising presence".<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/this_week/6088700.stm|title=Martin Amis – Take of the Week|work=BBC News|date=26 October 2006|access-date=23 February 2007|archive-date=11 January 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090111203953/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/this_week/6088700.stm|url-status=live}}</ref>

===Electoral politics===
In June 2008, Amis endorsed the candidacy of [[Barack Obama]] for president of the United States, stating: "The reason I hope for Obama is that he alone has the chance to reposition America's image in the world."<ref>[https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/this_week/7533252.stm "Martin Amis on Barack Obama"] . BBC1, ''This Week'', 30 July 2008.</ref> When briefly interviewed by the BBC during its coverage of the [[2012 United States presidential election]], Amis displayed a change in tone, stating that he was "depressed and frightened" by the US election, rather than excited.<ref name="bbc.co.uk">{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-us-canada-20229191|title=Martin Amis 'depressed' by US election|work=BBC News|date=7 November 2012}}</ref> Blaming a "deep irrationality of the American people" for the apparent narrow gap between the candidates, Amis said the [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican Party]] had swung so far to the right that former president [[Ronald Reagan]] would be considered a "pariah" by the present party – and invited viewers to imagine a [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative Party]] in the UK that had moved to the right so much that it disowned [[Margaret Thatcher]]. He said: "Tax cuts for the rich, there's not a democracy on earth where that would be mentioned!"<ref name="bbc.co.uk"/>

In 2015, Amis criticised [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour]] leader [[Jeremy Corbyn]] in an article for ''[[The Sunday Times]]'', describing him as "humourless" and "under-educated".<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/focus/article1624016.ece|archive-url=https://archive.today/20200226225447/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/amis-on-corbyn-undereducated-humourless-third-rate-dhvgj99fjxv|url-status=dead|archive-date=26 February 2020|first=Martin|last=Amis|title=Amis on Corbyn: Undereducated, humourless, third-rate|newspaper=The Sunday Times|date=25 October 2015}}</ref> In the aftermath of the [[2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum|2016 referendum]], Amis said that United Kingdom's decision to [[Brexit|leave the European Union]] was a "self-inflicted wound" that had left him "depressed".<ref>{{cite news |title=Martin Amis: Brexit 'a denial of British decline' |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-41348509 |access-date=22 May 2023 |work=BBC News |date=21 September 2017 |archive-date=22 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230522162751/https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-41348509 |url-status=live }}</ref>

=== Islam and Islamism ===
On the day after the [[2006 transatlantic aircraft plot]] came to light, Amis was interviewed by ''[[The Times Magazine]]'' about community relations in Britain and the alleged threat from [[Muslims]]; he was quoted as saying: "What can we do to raise the price of them doing this? There's a definite urge – don't you have it? – to say, 'The Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order.' What sort of suffering? Not letting them travel. Deportation – further down the road. Curtailing of freedoms. Strip-searching people who look like they're from the Middle East or from Pakistan ... Discriminatory stuff, until it hurts the whole community and they start getting tough with their children ... It's a huge dereliction on their part."<ref>[http://www.ginnydougary.co.uk/2006/09/17/the-voice-of-experience/ Martin Amis interviewed by Ginny Dougary] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070119084405/http://www.ginnydougary.co.uk/2006/09/17/the-voice-of-experience/ |date=19 January 2007 }}, originally published in ''The Times Magazine'', 9 September 2006.</ref>

The interview provoked immediate controversy, much of it played out in the pages of ''[[The Guardian]]'' newspaper.<ref name="Morey 2018">{{cite book | last=Morey | first=P. | title=Islamophobia and the Novel | publisher=Columbia University Press | series=Literature Now | year=2018 | isbn=978-0-231-54133-6 | page=136}}</ref> The [[Marxist]] critic [[Terry Eagleton]], in the 2007 introduction to his work ''Ideology'', singled out and attacked Amis for this particular quote, saying that this view is "[n]ot the ramblings of a [[British National Party]] thug, ... but the reflections of Martin Amis, leading luminary of the English metropolitan literary world". In a highly critical ''Guardian'' article, entitled "The absurd world of Martin Amis", satirist [[Chris Morris (satirist)|Chris Morris]] likened Amis to the Muslim cleric [[Abu Hamza al-Masri|Abu Hamza]] (who was jailed for [[inciting racial hatred]] in 2006), suggesting that both men employed "mock erudition, vitriol and decontextualised quotes from the [[Koran]]" to incite hatred.<ref>{{cite news |last=Morris |first=Chris |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/nov/25/bookscomment.religion |title=The absurd world of Martin Amis |newspaper=The Observer |date=25 November 2007 |access-date=22 June 2008 |quote=Last week Amis was called a racist. I saw him speak at the [[Institute of Contemporary Arts|ICA]] last month. Was his negativity about Islam technically racist? I don't know. What I can tell you is that Martin Amis is the new Abu Hamza. ... Like Hamza, Amis could only make his nonsense stand up with mock erudition, vitriol and decontextualised quotes from the Koran. |location=London |archive-date=1 September 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130901021653/http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/nov/25/bookscomment.religion |url-status=live }}</ref>

Elsewhere, Amis was especially careful to distinguish between Islam and radical [[Islamism]], stating: "We can begin by saying, not only that we respect [[Muhammad]], but that no serious person could fail to respect Muhammad – a unique and luminous historical being ... Judged by the continuities he was able to set in motion, Muhammad has strong claims to being the most extraordinary man who ever lived... But Islamism? No, we can hardly be asked to respect a creedal wave that calls for our own elimination ... Naturally we respect Islam. But we do not respect Islamism, just as we respect Muhammad and do not respect [[Mohamed Atta]]."<ref name="No Racist">{{Cite news|last=Amis|first=Martin|date=2007-12-01|title=No, I am not a racist|work=The Guardian|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/dec/01/race.islam|access-date=2023-12-31|issn=0261-3077}}</ref>

On terrorism, Amis wrote that he suspected "there exists on our planet a kind of human being who will become a Muslim in order to pursue suicide-mass murder", and added: "I will never forget the look on the gatekeeper's face, at the [[Dome of the Rock]] in Jerusalem, when I suggested, perhaps rather airily, that he skip some calendric prohibition and let me in anyway. His expression, previously cordial and cold, became a mask; and the mask was saying that killing me, my wife, and my children was something for which he now had warrant."<ref name=horrorism2006>Amis, Martin (23 February 2007). [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/sep/10/september11.politicsphilosophyandsociety "The Age of Horrorism"] , ''The Observer''.</ref>

His views on radical Islamism earned him the contentious sobriquet "Blitcon" (British literary [[neoconservative]]) from [[Ziauddin Sardar]], who labelled Amis as such in the ''[[New Statesman]]''.<ref name="Sardar2006">{{cite news |last=Sardar |first=Ziauddin |title=Welcome to Planet Blitcon |url=https://www.newstatesman.com/200612110045 |access-date=21 May 2023 |date=11 December 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080804044028/http://www.newstatesman.com/200612110045 |archive-date=4 August 2008}}</ref>{{refn|group=n|The ''New Statesman'' article also assigned the "Blitcon" label to [[Salman Rushdie]] and [[Ian McEwan]].<ref name="Sardar2006"/>}}

===Euthanasia===
Amis aroused a new controversy in 2010 with his comments regarding [[euthanasia]] during an interview, when he said that he thought Britain faced a "civil war" between the young and the elderly in society within 10 or 15 years, and called for public euthanasia "booths". Of the geriatric cohort, he declared: "They'll be a population of [[demented]] very old people, like an invasion of terrible immigrants, stinking out the restaurants and cafes and shops. ... there should be a booth on every corner where you could get a martini and a medal."<ref name="Davies2010">{{cite news |last=Davies |first=Caroline |title=Martin Amis in new row over 'euthanasia booths' |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/jan/24/martin-amis-euthanasia-booths-alzheimers |access-date=23 May 2023 |work=The Guardian |date=24 January 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140103030008/http://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/jan/24/martin-amis-euthanasia-booths-alzheimers |archive-date=3 January 2014}}</ref>{{refn|group=n|One of the books that Amis reviewed for ''The Observer'' in 1972 was Kurt Vonnegut's ''[[Welcome to the Monkey House]]'', the [[Welcome to the Monkey House (short story)|title story of which]] features an over-populated Earth with ubiquitous government-run "[[Ethical Suicide]] Parlors".<ref name="DiedrickHayes2006"/><ref>{{cite web |last=Mambrol |first=Nasrullah |title=Analysis of Kurt Vonnegut's Stories |url=https://literariness.org/2020/06/24/analysis-of-kurt-vonneguts-stories/ |website=Literary Theory and Criticism |access-date=23 May 2023 |date=24 June 2020 |archive-date=24 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230324101553/https://literariness.org/2020/06/24/analysis-of-kurt-vonneguts-stories/ |url-status=live }}</ref>}}

===Agnosticism===
In 2006, Amis said that "agnostic is the only respectable position, simply because our ignorance of the universe is so vast" that [[atheism]] is "premature". He added that "there's not going to be any kind of anthropomorphic entity at all", but the universe is "so incredibly complicated" and "so over our heads" that we cannot exclude the existence of "an intelligence" behind it.<ref>[https://www.pbs.org/moyers/faithandreason/print/faithandreason106_print.html Bill Moyers and Martin Amis and Margaret Atwood] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170817223917/http://www.pbs.org/moyers/faithandreason/print/faithandreason106_print.html |date=17 August 2017 }}. [[PBS]], 28 July 2006. Retrieved 9 October 2010.</ref>

In 2010, Amis said: "I'm an agnostic, which is the only rational position. It's not because I feel a God or think that anything resembling the banal God of religion will turn up. But I think that atheism sounds like a proof of something, and it's incredibly evident that we are nowhere near intelligent enough to understand the universe ... Writers are above all individualists, and above all writing is freedom, so they will go off in all sorts of directions. I think it does apply to the debate about religion, in that it's a crabbed novelist who pulls the shutters down and says, there's no other thing. Don't use the word God: but something more intelligent than us ... If we can't understand it, then it's formidable. And we understand very little."<ref>Tom Chatfield (1 February 2010). [https://web.archive.org/web/20110703143404/http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2010/02/martin-amis/ "Martin Amis: The Prospect Interview"], ''Prospect''. Retrieved 20 March 2010.</ref>

==Bibliography==
{{Incomplete list|date=December 2021}}

===Novels===
Amis published 15 novels:<ref group=lower-alpha name="NewEuropean">{{cite news |last=D'Ancona |first=Matthew |author-link=Matthew d'Ancona |title=We need Martin Amis's writings more than ever |url=https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/we-need-martin-amis-more-than-ever/ |work=The New European |date=21 May 2023 |access-date=22 May 2023 |archive-date=21 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230521225401/https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/we-need-martin-amis-more-than-ever/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
* ''[[The Rachel Papers (novel)|The Rachel Papers]]'' (1973: {{ISBN|9780224009126}})
* ''[[Dead Babies (novel)|Dead Babies]]'' (1975: {{ISBN|9780224011679}})
* ''[[Success (novel)|Success]]'' (1978: {{ISBN|9780224015714}})
* ''[[Other People (novel)|Other People: A Mystery Story]]'' (1981: {{ISBN|9780224017664}})
* ''[[Money (novel)|Money: A Suicide Note]]'' (1984: {{ISBN|9780099461883}})
* ''[[London Fields (novel)|London Fields]]'' (1989: {{ISBN|9780224026093}})
* ''[[Time's Arrow (novel)|Time's Arrow: Or the Nature of the Offence]]'' (1991: {{ISBN|9780670843664}})
* ''[[The Information (novel)|The Information]]'' (1995: {{ISBN|9780002253567}})
* ''[[Night Train (novel)|Night Train]]'' (1997: {{ISBN|9780224050180}})
* ''[[Yellow Dog (novel)|Yellow Dog]]'' (2003: {{ISBN|9780224050616}})
* ''[[House of Meetings]]'' (2006 : {{ISBN|9780224076098}})
* ''[[The Pregnant Widow]]'' (2010: {{ISBN|9780224076128}})
* ''[[Lionel Asbo: State of England]]'' (2012: {{ISBN|9780224096218}})
* ''[[The Zone of Interest (novel)|The Zone of Interest]]'' (2014: {{ISBN|9780385353496}})
* ''[[Inside Story (novel)|Inside Story]]'' (2020: {{ISBN|9780593318294}})

=== Short fiction ===
;Collections
* ''[[Einstein's Monsters]]'' (1987: {{ISBN|9780099768913}})
* ''[[Two Stories]]'' (1994: {{ISBN|9781898154044}}; both later collected in ''Heavy Water and Other Stories'')<ref group=lower-alpha name="Bradford">{{cite book |last=Bradford |first=Richard |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=grmeBAAAQBAJ |title=Martin Amis: The Biography |chapter=Bibliography |date=3 November 2011 |publisher=Little, Brown Book Group |isbn=978-1-84901-850-0 |access-date=30 January 2023 |archive-date=16 June 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240616132151/https://books.google.com/books?id=grmeBAAAQBAJ |url-status=live }}</ref>
* ''[[God's Dice]]'' (1995: {{ISBN|9780146000546}}; two stories reprinted from ''Einstein's Monsters'', part of the [[Penguin 60s]] series)<ref group=lower-alpha name="Bradford"/><ref name="ESF"/>
* ''[[Heavy Water and Other Stories]]'' (1998: {{ISBN|9780609601297}})
*''Amis Omnibus'' (omnibus) (1999)
*''Vintage Amis'' (2004)
;Stories
{|class='wikitable sortable'
|-
!width=25%|Title
!|Year
!|First published
!|Reprinted/collected
!|Notes
|-
|Oktober
|2015
|{{cite magazine |author=Amis, Martin |df=mdy |date=December 7, 2015 |title=Oktober |magazine=The New Yorker |volume=91 |issue=39 |pages=64–71|url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/12/07/oktober <!--|accessdate=2021-12-07-->}}
|
|
|-
|}

===Non-fiction===
;Books
* ''[[Invasion of the Space Invaders]]'' (1982: {{ISBN|9780458953509}})
* ''[[The Moronic Inferno: And Other Visits to America]]'' (1986: {{ISBN|9780670814329}})
* ''[[Visiting Mrs Nabokov: And Other Excursions]]'' (1993: {{ISBN|9780224038249}})
* ''[[Experience (book)|Experience]]'' (2000: {{ISBN|9780224061254}})
* ''[[The War Against Cliché|The War Against Cliché: Essays and Reviews 1971–2000]]'' (2001: {{ISBN|9780099422228}})
* ''[[Koba the Dread: Laughter and the Twenty Million]]'' (2002: {{ISBN|9780786868766}})
* ''[[The Second Plane]]'' (2008: {{ISBN|9780099488699}})
* ''[[The Rub of Time|The Rub of Time: Bellow, Nabokov, Hitchens, Travolta, Trump. Essays and Reportage, 1986–2016]]'' (2017: {{ISBN|9780099488729}})
;Essays and reporting
* {{cite magazine |author=Amis, Martin |df=mdy |date=August 29, 2022 |title=The Queen's heart : in time for her Golden Jubilee, two biographies of Elizabeth II |department=The Critics. Books. May 20, 2002 |magazine=The New Yorker |volume=98 |issue=26 |pages=60–62, 64–65 |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/05/20/queen-elizabeth-iis-fine-tuned-feelings <!--|access-date=2024-09-04-->}}<ref group=lower-alpha>Online version is titled "Elizabeth II's fine-tuned feelings".</ref><ref group=lower-alpha>Originally published in the May 20, 2002 issue.</ref>
===Screenplays===
* ''[[Saturn 3]]'' (1980)<ref group=lower-alpha>{{cite magazine|title=Saturn 3|first=John|last=Brosnan|url=https://archive.org/details/Starburst_Magazine_023_1980-07_Marvel-UK|website=Starburst Magazine|number=23|date=July 1980|page=[https://archive.org/details/Starburst_Magazine_023_1980-07_Marvel-UK/page/n11 12]}}</ref>
* ''[[London Fields (film)|London Fields]]'' (2018; with [[Roberta Hanley]])<ref group=lower-alpha>{{cite news |last=Martin |first=Francesca |title=Amis ventures back to London Fields after 19 years for film adaptation |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/may/07/fiction.martinamis |access-date=24 May 2023 |work=The Guardian |date=7 May 2008 |archive-date=19 February 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140219005923/http://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/may/07/fiction.martinamis |url-status=live }}</ref><ref group=lower-alpha>{{cite web |last=Barker |first=Andrew |title=Film Review: 'London Fields' |url=https://variety.com/2015/film/reviews/london-fields-review-toronto-film-festival-1201594094/ |website=Variety |access-date=24 May 2023 |date=15 September 2015 |archive-date=26 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230426200132/https://variety.com/2015/film/reviews/london-fields-review-toronto-film-festival-1201594094/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
———————
;Bibliography notes
{{Reflist|40em|group=lower-alpha}}

== Themes and style ==
Martin Amis's fiction is characterized by dark satire, metafictional techniques, and a fascination with cultural decadence. His protagonists often wrestle with identity, self-destruction, and moral vacuity, reflecting Amis's preoccupation with entropy and decline in modern Western society.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Rosenbaum |first=Ron |title=Martin Amis Contemplates Evil |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/martin-amis-contemplates-evil-17857756/ |access-date=2025-07-30 |website=Smithsonian Magazine |language=en}}</ref> His writing is known for its linguistic flair—featuring neologisms, irony, and elaborate sentence constructions—and for a tone that oscillates between comic absurdity and existential seriousness. Critics have grouped his novels ''Money'', ''London Fields'', and ''The Information'' into a “London Trilogy,” defined by their scathing portrayal of consumerism, gender politics, and creative envy.<ref>{{Cite news |date=1998 |title=Martin Amis, The Art of Fiction No. 151 |url=https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1156/the-art-of-fiction-no-151-martin-amis |access-date=2025-07-30 |language=en |volume=Spring 1998 |issue=146 |issn=0031-2037}}</ref>

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=n}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
'''Critical Studies of Amis'''
* {{cite book
 | last = Bentley
 | first = Nick
 | title = Martin Amis (Writers and Their Work)
 | publisher = Liverpool University Press.
 | year = 2015
 | pages = 
 | isbn = 978-0-7463-1178-3
}}
* {{cite book
 | last = Bradford
 | first = Richard
 | title = Martin Amis: The Biography
 | publisher = Pegasus
 | date = November 2012
 | isbn = 978-1-60598-385-1
 | url-access = registration
 | url = https://archive.org/details/martinamisbiogra0000brad
 }}
* {{cite book
 | last = Diedrick
 | first = James
 | title = Understanding Martin Amis (Understanding Contemporary British Literature)
 | publisher = University of South Carolina Press
 | year = 2004
 | isbn = 978-1-57003-516-6
 }}
* {{cite book
 | last = Finney
 | first = Brian
 | title = Martin Amis (Routledge Guides to Literature)
 | publisher = Routledge
 | year = 2008
 | pages = 178
 | isbn = 978-0-415-40292-7
 }}

* {{cite book
 | last = Keulks
 | first = Gavin
 | title = Father and Son: Kingsley Amis, Martin Amis, and the British Novel Since 1950
 | publisher = University of Wisconsin Press
 | year = 2003
 | isbn = 978-0-299-19210-5
}}
* {{cite book
 | last = Keulks
 | first = Gavin
 | title = Martin Amis: Postmodernism and Beyond
 | publisher = Palgrave Macmillan
 | year = 2006
 | isbn = 978-0230008304
}}
* {{cite book
 | last = Tredell
 | first = Nicolas
 | title = The Fiction of Martin Amis (Readers' Guides to Essential Criticism)
 | publisher = Palgrave Macmillan
 | year = 2000
 | isbn = 978-1-84046-135-0
 }}
* {{cite book
 | last = Tredell
 | first = Nicolas
 | title = Anatomy of Amis: a study of the work of Martin Amis
 | publisher = Paupers' Press
 | year = 2017
 | pages = 
 | isbn = 978-0-9568663-9-4
}}
* {{cite book
 | last = Tredell
 | first = Nicolas
 | title = Amis Antaeus: Strength from the Street:'' The Rachel Papers'' to ''Money''
 | publisher = Tredellian Publishing
 | year = 2025
 | pages =  | isbn = 978-1-7392794-6-2
}}
'''Critical Essays on Amis'''

*Ashley, Leonard R. N. (1987). "'Names Are Awfully Important': The Onomastics of Satirical Content in Martin Amis''' Money: A Suicide Note''", ''Literary Onomastics Studies'' 14, pp. 1-48.

*Brooker, Joseph (2000). "The Middle Years of Martin Amis" in Rod Mengham and Philip Tew (eds), ''British Fiction Today''. London and New York: Continuum, pp. 3-14. https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/437/1/Binder1.pdf

*Crews, Brian (2010). "Martin Amis and the Postmodern Grotesque". ''Modern Language Review'' 105, pp. 641-59.

*Falconer, Rachel (1988). "Bakhtin's Chronotope and the Contemporary Short Story". ''South Atlantic Quarterly'', 97:3/4, pp. 699-732.

*Finney, Brian (1995). "Narrative and Narrated Homicides in Martin Amis's ''Other People'' and ''London Fields''". ''Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction'' 37:1, pp. 49-54. Extract in Tredell (2000), pp. 49-54.

*Hawkes, David (1977). "Martin Amis (1949- )" in George Stade and Carol Howard (eds), ''British Writers: Supplement IV''. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, pp. 25-44.

*Holmes, Frederick (1996). "The Death of the Author as Cultural Critique in ''London Fields''" in Ricardo Miguel Alfonso (ed.), ''Powerless Fictions? Ethics, Cultural Critique, and American Fiction in the Age of Postmodernism''. Amsterdam -Atalanta GA: Editions Rodopi B. V., pp. 53-62.

*Lodge, David (1992). ''The Art of Fiction: Illustrated from Classic and Modern Texts''. London: Secker & Warburg. See especially "The Sense of Place", pp. 56-60, on an extract from ''Money''. Other references to Martin Amis are on pp. 79, 87, 92-3, 195, 231.

*Lodge, David (1992). "The Novelist Today: Still at the Crossroads?" in Malcolm Bradbury and Judith Cook (eds), ''New Writing''. London: Minerva, in association with the British Council, pp. 203-15.

*Mars-Jones, Adam (1990). ''Venus Envy''. Counterblasts series no. 14. London: Chatto & Windus, pp. 2-19.

*Miller, Karl (1987). ''Doubles: Studies in Literary History''. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 409-15.

*Smith, Penny (1995). "Hell innit: The Millenium in Alasdair Gray's ''Lanark'', Martin Amis's ''Money'', and Shena Mackay's ''Dunedin''". ''Essays and Studies'' 48, pp. 115-28. 

*Thomas, Susie (2003). "Posing as a Postmodernist: Race and Class in Martin Amis's ''London Fields''". ''Literary London: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Representation of London,''  1/ 2.

*Todd, Richard (1987). "The Intrusive Author in British Postmodernist Fiction: The Cases of Alasdair Gray and Martin Amis" in Matei Calinescu and Douwe Fokkema (eds), ''Exploring Postmodernism'', Utretcht Publications in General and Comparative Literature series, vol. 23. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamin, pp. 123-37.

*Tredell, Nicolas (2019). "Addicted to Greed: Martin Amis's ''Money''" in Robert C. Evans (ed.), ''Critical Insights: Greed''. Hackensack, NJ: Salem Press, pp. 253-69.

*Tredell, Nicolas (2013). "Martin Amis: ''Lionel Asbo'' - 2012".  ''London Fictions'' https://www.londonfictions.com/martin-amis-lionel-asbo.html

==External links==
{{Commons category|Martin Amis}}
{{Wikiquote}}
* [http://www.martinamisweb.com/ The Martin Amis Web] ({{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080119223326/http://www.martinamisweb.com/ |date=19 January 2008 }})
* [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/jun/09/martinamis Martin Amis] page at ''The Guardian''
* [https://www.nytimes.com/books/00/05/28/specials/amis.html Martin Amis], ''The New York Times'': Reviews of Martin Amis's earlier books; articles about and by Martin Amis
* {{British council|id=martin-amis|name=Martin Amis}}
* [https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/magazine/22amises.t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin "The Amis Inheritance"] – Profile of Martin and Kingsley Amis from ''[[The New York Times Magazine]]'', 22 April 2007
* {{NPG name}}
* {{C-SPAN|47752}}
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Peku9GHLx48&ab_channel=CBCNews "Martin Amis on Trump, racism and political correctness"], CBC News, 1 April 2018 – brief interview with [[Wendy Mesley]]
* [https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/2722570-martin-amis-interviews-roman-polanski Martin Amis Interviews Roman Polanski]

{{Martin Amis|state=expanded}}
{{Kingsley Amis}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Amis, Martin}}
[[Category:1949 births]]
[[Category:2023 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century British memoirists]]
[[Category:20th-century British travel writers]]
[[Category:20th-century English essayists]]
[[Category:20th-century English historians]]
[[Category:20th-century English novelists]]
[[Category:20th-century English screenwriters]]
[[Category:20th-century English short story writers]]
[[Category:21st-century English screenwriters]]
[[Category:Academics of the University of Manchester]]
[[Category:Alumni of Exeter College, Oxford]]
[[Category:Amis family|Martin]]
[[Category:British anti-capitalists]]
[[Category:British essayists]]
[[Category:British literary theorists]]
[[Category:British male short story writers]]
[[Category:British postmodern writers]]
[[Category:British satirical novelists]]
[[Category:British satirists]]
[[Category:Deaths from esophageal cancer in Florida]]
[[Category:English agnostics]]
[[Category:English anti-war activists]]
[[Category:English anti–nuclear weapons activists]]
[[Category:English autobiographers]]
[[Category:English opinion journalists]]
[[Category:English expatriates in the United States]]
[[Category:English horror writers]]
[[Category:English literary critics]]
[[Category:English male non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:English male novelists]]
[[Category:English mystery writers]]
[[Category:English republicans]]
[[Category:English science fiction writers]]
[[Category:English travel writers]]
[[Category:Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature]]
[[Category:Freethought writers]]
[[Category:Humor researchers]]
[[Category:Irony theorists]]
[[Category:James Tait Black Memorial Prize recipients]]
[[Category:Knights Bachelor]]
[[Category:Literacy and society theorists]]
[[Category:Mass media theorists]]
[[Category:Metaphor theorists]]
[[Category:National Book Critics Circle Award winners]]
[[Category:New Statesman people]]
[[Category:People educated at Bishop Gore School]]
[[Category:People educated at Cambridgeshire High School for Boys]]
[[Category:People from Cobble Hill, Brooklyn]]
[[Category:People from Lake Worth Beach, Florida]]
[[Category:Surrealist writers]]
[[Category:The New Yorker people]]
[[Category:Theorists on Western civilization]]
[[Category:Trope theorists]]
[[Category:Video game critics]]
[[Category:Writers about activism and social change]]
[[Category:Writers about communism]]
[[Category:Writers about globalization]]
[[Category:Writers about religion and science]]
[[Category:Writers of historical fiction set in the modern age]]