Sir Michael Andrew Bridge Morpurgo (né Bridge; born 5 October 1943) is an English book author, poet, playwright, and librettist who is known best for children's novels such as War Horse (1982). His work is noted for its "magical storytelling", for recurring themes such as the triumph of an outsider or survival, for characters' relationships with nature, and for vivid settings such as the Cornish coast or the trenches of the First World War. Morpurgo was the third Children's Laureate, from 2003 to 2005, and is President of BookTrust, a children's reading charity.
Morpurgo was born Michael Andrew Bridge in 1943 in St Albans, Hertfordshire, the second child of actor Tony Van Bridge and actress Kippe Cammaerts (daughter of the writer and poet Émile Cammaerts). Both RADA graduates, his parents had met when they were acting in the same repertory company in 1938. His grandfather, Arthur Stanley Bridge, was a lighterage contractor and the son of a Wandsworth coal merchant,
while his mother's family were actors, an opera singer, writers, and poets. They were married in 1941 while Van Bridge, having been called up in 1939 and by then stationed in Scotland, was on leave from the army. Morpurgo's brother Pieter was born in 1942. When Morpurgo was born the following year, his father was stationed in Baghdad.
While Van Bridge was away at war, Kippe Cammaerts met Jack Morpurgo (subsequently professor of American Literature at the University of Leeds). When Van Bridge returned to England in 1946, Cammaerts obtained a divorce from him and married Jack Morpurgo in 1947. Although they were not formally adopted, Morpurgo and his brother took on their step-father's name. Morpurgo's older brother, Pieter Morpurgo, later became a BBC television producer and director. He has two younger half siblings, Mark and Kay Morpurgo. Their mother was frail, having suffered a breakdown when she was 19, and grieved the loss of her brother Pieter, who was killed in the war in 1941, for the rest of her life.
Morpurgo and his brother were evacuated to Northumberland when they were very young. After they returned to London, the family lived in Philbeach Gardens, Earl's Court, where the children played on nearby bombsites. Morpurgo went to primary school at St Matthias, Earl's Court. The family later moved to Bradwell-on-Sea in Essex, where Morpurgo would live during the school holidays, having been sent to a boarding school in Sussex when he was seven years old. The school was very strict and the boys were beaten frequently. During this period Morpurgo developed a stutter. His unhappy experiences at boarding school would later inform his novel The Butterfly Lion. After six years at The Abbey School in Ashurst Wood, Morpurgo then went to the King's School, an independent school in Canterbury, Kent, where he felt less homesick than at his previous school.
Morpurgo did not learn who his biological father was until he was 19 years old. After the divorce from Michael's mother, Van Bridge had emigrated to Canada and was never spoken about. Morpurgo never saw an image of his father until, while watching the 1962 CBC version of Great Expectations on TV with his mother, she recognised Van Bridge in the role of Magwitch and said to Michael "That's your father!" They met in person nine years later.
Morpurgo's stepfather was not encouraging to his sons and was disappointed that they were not meeting his expectations for them of going into academia like him, calling Michael "a bear with very little brain." His stepfather decided he should join the army and Morpurgo attended the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He quickly realised that a soldier's life was not for him and left after nine months. He said later that reading the poems of the First World War poets when he was a young soldier were "part of the reason I left the army and became a teacher and then a writer of many books about war in which a longing for peace and reconciliation is always evident."
Morpurgo later went to study at King's College London, reading English, French, and Philosophy, and graduated with a third class degree. He then joined the teaching profession with a job at a primary school in the village of Wickhambreaux near Canterbury in Kent. He also, in 1968, briefly taught at St. Faith's School in Cambridge.
From teaching to writing novels
It was not until he was teaching in Kent that Morpurgo discovered his vocation in life, of which he later said "I could see there was magic in it for them, and realized there was magic in it for me."
Morpurgo's writing career was inspired by Ted Hughes' Poetry in the Making, Paul Gallico's The Snow Goose and Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. Hughes and another poet, Seán Rafferty, were influential in his career, with Hughes becoming a friend, mentor and neighbour. Morpurgo credits Hughes and Rafferty with giving him the confidence to write War Horse, his most successful work to date.
Morpurgo is the author of dozens of books, including the notable titles:
Gentle Giant was presented as an opera by composer Stephen McNeff and librettist Mike Kenny at the Royal Opera House in 2006. Film versions have been made of Friend or Foe (1981), Private Peaceful (2012) and When the Whales Came (1989), the latter also being adapted to a stage play. My Friend Walter (1988) 'Purple Penguins' (2000) and Out of the Ashes (2001) have been adapted for television.
Composer Stephen Barlow created a musical adaptation of Rainbow Bear, narrated by his wife Joanna Lumley. This was subsequently presented as a ballet by the National Youth Ballet of Great Britain in August 2010.
War Horse has been adapted as a radio broadcast and as a stage play by Nick Stafford, premiering at the National Theatre, London, on 17 October 2007. The horses were played by life-sized horse puppets designed and built by the Handspring Puppet Company of South Africa. It won two Olivier Awards in 2007. Initially intended to run for 16 weeks, due to popular demand the show transferred to the New London Theatre in the West End on 28 March 2009. It closed in the West End after eight years, having been seen by 2.7 million people in London and seven million worldwide at the time. It was the most successful production of the National Theatre ever.
On 15 March 2011, the show premiered on Broadway at the Vivian Beaumont Theater. The play's Broadway production won five Tony Awards, including Best Play. It went on several UK tours and was also staged in Australia, Canada, China, Germany, and The Netherlands. It was seen by seven million people outside the UK.
In 2011, War Horse was adapted by Lee Hall and Richard Curtis as a British film directed by Steven Spielberg. The film was nominated numerous awards, including six Academy Awards and five BAFTA Awards.
Waiting for Anya was adapted as a film of the same title released in 2020. Kensuke's Kingdom, following a fictionalised version of Morpurgo himself stranded on a desert island as a child, was adapted as a film of the same title first released in 2023 and widely released in 2024, with Aaron MacGregor voicing a young Michael, and Sally Hawkins and Cillian Murphy voicing his parents.