Marcel Theroux

Marcel Theroux was born in 1968 in Kampala, Uganda, where his American father, Paul Theroux, was teaching at Makerere University. His mother is Anne Castle, an Englishwoman. The family spent the next two years in Singapore, where his father taught at the National University of Singapore. After their move to England, Theroux was brought up in Wandsworth, London. After attending a state primary school, he boarded at Westminster School where his best friend was Nick Clegg.^[2] He went on to study English literature at Clare College, Cambridge. He won a fellowship to study International Relations with a specialisation in Soviet and East European Studies at Yale University.

He lives in Tooting, London, and is married. His paternal French surname originates from the region around Sarthe and Yonne in France. It is quite common in francophone countries and is originally spelled Théroux. His father, born and raised in the United States, is of half French Canadian and half Italian descent.

From 2000 to 2002, Theroux presented a series of documentaries for Unreported World.

In 2004 he presented The End of the World as We Know It, part of the War on Terra television series about climate change on Channel 4. He was chosen as presenter because he originally knew nothing about the subject. He initially believed that all environmentalists were opposed to technological progress. But during his research, he became convinced that the world faced a global problem on a scale so serious that an expansion of nuclear energy is probably the best solution (choosing the lesser evil). He reached this conclusion partly in response to his interviews with several experts, such as Gerhard Bertz of the insurance agency Munich Re, who said that during the past 20 years, payments for natural disasters have increased by 500 percent. He also interviewed Royal Dutch Shell chairman Lord Ron Oxburgh. A PR assistant interrupted them. Oxburgh's negative views on the consequences of current oil consumption were likely considered detrimental to the corporation's image.

In March 2006 Theroux presented Death of a Nation on More4, as part of The State of Russia series. In the programme he explored the country's post-Soviet problems, including population decline, the growing AIDS epidemic, and the persecution of the Meskhetian Turks. During interviews in the programme, he spoke simple Russian.

 

On 28 September 2008 he presented Oligart: The Great Russian Art Boom on Channel 4, exploring the role of Russia's rich in keeping Russia's art history alive by buying and exhibiting domestic art.

In March 2009, Faber and Faber published Theroux's Far North, a future epic set in the Siberian taiga.

On 16 March 2009, Theroux presented In Search of Wabi-sabi on BBC Four, as part of the channel's 'Hidden Japan' season of programming. Theroux travelled and reported from Japan to explore the aesthetic tastes of Japan and its people.

In 2012, he presented a documentary for Unreported World Series 23, on the subject of street children in Ukraine.

His novel Strange Bodies won the 2014 John W. Campbell Memorial Award.

In 2017, he presented a documentary for Unreported World which explored the social and economic consequences of the recent rise in Orthodoxy and Russian nationalism under Vladimir Putin.

In 2020, he presented a documentary for Unreported World which explored middle-aged, single Japanese men's obsession with 'Junior Idols' and whether it was a quirk in Japanese culture or something more sinister.

• Theroux, Marcel (2002). The Confessions of Mycroft Holmes. Harvest Books. ISBN 978-0156007436.
• Theroux, Marcel (2009). Far North: A Novel. Picador. ISBN 978-0312429720.
• Theroux, Marcel (2013). Strange Bodies: A Novel. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 978-0571297894.
• Theroux, Marcel (2022). The Sorcerer of Pyongyang. Corsair. ISBN 978-1668002667.

• Official website
• Interview on Meet The Writers, Monocle 24 with Georgina Godwin
• "Russia's rise in conservative family values - Unreported World 2017