Nevil Shute, pseudonym of Nevil Shute Norway Biography

British writer, born in Middlesex, educated at Balliol College, Oxford. Shute worked as an engineer in an airship factory, and in 1931 founded an aircraft manufacturing firm of which he became a director in 1938. By this time he had established himself as a writer of traditional tales of romance and adventure with such novels as Marazan (1926), So Disdained (1928), Lonely Road (1932), and Ruined City (1938). The Pied Piper (1942) concerns the rescue of a group of children from the Nazis. His interest in aeronautics is reflected in many of his novels, such as No Highway (1948). He later emigrated to Australia, where much of his later fiction was set, including his best-known novel, A Town like Alice (1949), a romance set in Alice Springs in the barren centre of Australia. His other works include The Far Country (1952), On the Beach (1957, later filmed), and The Trustee from the Toolroom (1960).