Nick Laird

Laird's fourth collection, published by Faber and Faber in August 2018, was shortlisted for the 2018 T. S. Eliot Prize.

Go Giants is Laird's third collection, published by Faber and Faber in 2015.

He participated in the Bush Theatre's 2011 project Sixty Six Books, with a piece he wrote based upon a book of the King James Bible.

On Purpose is his follow-up book of poems, published also by Faber and Faber in 2007. The collection further explores the concept of relationships, loosely based on the tract The Art of War by Sun Tzu. The book won the Somerset Maugham Award and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize in 2008.

In a January 2006 appearance on The Leonard Lopate Show, Laird explained how travelling out of Northern Ireland for an education in Cambridge had expanded his horizons and opened him up to opportunities that he believes would have otherwise been closed to him: "I met a Jewish person for the first time. I met a black person for the first time." He also described the freedom that moving away from Northern Ireland gave him with respect to adopting a new, or broader, identity. "It does mean freedom in a way to reinvent."

To a Fault and Utterly Monkey were both long-listed for the inaugural Dylan Thomas Prize. To a Fault won the Jerwood Aldeburgh Prize, the Ireland Chair for Poetry Award and the Rupert and Eithne Strong Award. It was also shortlisted for the Forward Poetry Prize for First Collection; it was shortlisted for the Poetry Now Award in 2006; and it was longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award.

To a Fault is Laird's first collection of poems, and was nominated for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. To a Fault was published by Faber and Faber in January 2005.

Utterly Monkey was published in May 2005 by Fourth Estate, and by Harper Perennial in the US. It follows the relationship of two childhood friends from Northern Ireland. One of them, Danny, grows up to be a lawyer after attaining an education in London, while the other, Geordie, works as a labourer, and does not pursue extensive studies after school. Laird has described Geordie as "more feckless than Danny," and "a kind of a drifter."

Laird met Zadie Smith at Cambridge University. They married in 2004 in the Chapel of King's College, Cambridge. Smith dedicated her third novel entitled On Beauty to "my dear Laird." The couple lived in Rome from November 2006 to 2007 and now live in New York City and Queen's Park, London. They have two children, Katherine (Kit) and Harvey (Hal).

Laird won the Eric Gregory Award in 2004 and was also the recipient of the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature in 2005. Utterly Monkey won the Betty Trask Prize for best first novel in 2005. It was also shortlisted for the Commonwealth best first novel award, the Irish novel of the year award, and the Kerry Group Listowel Fiction prize. On Purpose won a Somerset Maugham Award and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize in 2007.

Nicholas Laird (born 1975) is a Northern Irish novelist and poet.