Prose Mitchell's first novel,
Ghostwritten (1999), takes place in locations ranging from
Okinawa to
Mongolia to pre-millennial New York City, as nine narrators tell stories that interlock and intersect. It won the
John Llewellyn Rhys Prize (for best work of British literature written by an author under 35) and was shortlisted for the
Guardian First Book Award. His two subsequent novels,
number9dream (2001) and
Cloud Atlas (2004), were both favourably received and shortlisted for the
Man Booker Prize. In 2003, he was selected as one of
Granta's Best of Young British Novelists. In 2007, Mitchell was listed among
Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People in The World. In 2012, his
metafictional novel
Cloud Atlas (again, with multiple narrators), was adapted as
a feature film of the same name. One segment of
number9dream was adapted as a short film titled
The Voorman Problem and starring
Martin Freeman. It was nominated for a BAFTA in 2013. In addition to novels, Mitchell has written opera libretti in recent years.
Wake, with music by
Klaas de Vries, was based on the 2000
Enschede fireworks disaster. It was performed by the Dutch Nationale Reisopera in 2010. He created the opera,
Sunken Garden, with Dutch composer
Michel van der Aa; it was premiered in 2013 by the
English National Opera. Several of Mitchell's book covers were created by design duo Kai and Sunny. Mitchell has also collaborated with the duo, by contributing two short stories to their art exhibits in 2011 and 2014. Mitchell's sixth novel,
The Bone Clocks, was published in 2014. In an interview in
The Spectator, Mitchell said that the novel has "dollops of the fantastic in it", and is about "stuff between life and death".
The Bone Clocks was longlisted for the
2014 Man Booker Prize and won the
World Fantasy Award. Mitchell was the second author to contribute to the
Future Library project. He delivered his book
From Me Flows What You Call Time on 28 May 2016.
Utopia Avenue, Mitchell's ninth novel, was published by Hodder & Stoughton in 2020, during the first year of the
COVID-19 pandemic.
Utopia Avenue tells the "unexpurgated story" of a British band of the same name, who emerged from London's psychedelic scene in 1967 and was "fronted by folk singer Elf Holloway, guitar demigod Jasper de Zoet and blues bassist Dean Moss". Mitchell's entire body of fictional works feature multiple recurring characters and themes that together form an interconnected fictional world, which Mitchell refers to as his 'macronovel'.
Screenwriting Following the release of
the 2012 film adaptation of
Cloud Atlas, Mitchell began work as a screenwriter with
Lana Wachowski (one of
Cloud Atlas three directors). In 2015, Mitchell contributed plotting and scripted scenes for the second season of the
Netflix series
Sense8 by
the Wachowskis, writing the series finale together with
Aleksandar Hemon. Mitchell had signed a contract to write season three of the series, but Netflix cancelled the show. In August 2019, it was announced that Mitchell would continue his collaboration with Lana Wachowski and Hemon to write the screenplay for
The Matrix Resurrections. ==Personal life==