British · b. 1954
Magnus Mills drove buses in London and wrote novels on his breaks. "The Restraint of Beasts" (1998), his debut, follows three fencing contractors in Scotland through deadpan absurdist misadventures—Kafka by way of British worksite humor. The novel was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the McKitterick Prize. Mills continues to write spare, strange fiction about labor and futility while maintaining his day job. His work refuses to explain itself.