Eoin Colfer

Irish roots and early imagination

Eoin Colfer, born on 14 May 1965 in Wexford, Ireland, is an Irish writer of children’s literature. He grew up as one of five siblings in a household shaped by teaching, history, and performance. His father was a teacher and historian, and his mother was a drama teacher. From an early age, Colfer developed a love for theatre, which he described as his “first love,” and he often enjoyed reciting lines with his mother. The first piece of writing he ever produced was a play for a Christmas show.

Several early experiences later found their way into his fiction. As a child, Colfer worked at the country house Loftus Hall, washing bottles; the house later inspired Fowl Manor in his Artemis Fowl books. He studied at the University of Dublin, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in Education, and he worked as a primary school teacher before becoming a full-time writer. Soon after graduating, he spent four years working in Saudi Arabia, Italy, and Tunisia. His travels through Europe, together with his Irish heritage, formed a basis for many of his earlier stories.

Artemis Fowl and beyond

Colfer became widely known in 2001, when the first Artemis Fowl book became a New York Times Best Seller. The series grew into eleven fantasy books: eight Artemis Fowl novels published from 2001 to 2012, followed by three Fowl Twins books published from 2019 to 2021. As of 2013, the novels had sold more than 21 million copies worldwide and had been translated into 44 languages. In a 2010 public poll, readers voted Artemis Fowl their favorite Puffin Books title of all time.

His work did not stop with Artemis Fowl. Among his other popular books are Half Moon Investigations, The Wish List, The Supernaturalist, and the series Eoin Colfer’s Legends. In January 2008, he published Airman, another best-seller. More than half of his books have reached the New York Times list at least once. His books have received awards including the British Children’s Book of the Year, the Irish Book Awards Children’s Book of the Year, and the German Children’s Book of the Year 2025.

Colfer has also written inside other well-known fictional worlds. In September 2008, he was commissioned to write the sixth installment of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series, And Another Thing ..., which was published in October 2009. Douglas Adams’s widow, Jane Belson, and the agency managing Adams’s estate asked him to take on the book, and Colfer, already a fan of the series, described the chance as “a gift from the gods.” In October 2016, through a contract with Marvel Comics, he released Iron Man: The Gauntlet. He also served as Laureate na nÓg, Ireland’s Children’s Laureate, from 2014 to 2016.

Colfer’s career reaches across novels, graphic novels, film, and television-related writing. His first screenplay, Poison Pen, became an Irish romantic comedy filmed in Ireland in 2014 and premiered at the 26th Galway Film Fleadh on 11 July that year. His books continue to find readers because they come from a writer grounded in classroom experience, family storytelling, theatre, travel, and a clear sense of place. For a quotes website, his name carries the appeal of a storyteller whose work has moved from Wexford to millions of readers in dozens of languages.