[2] Dunthorne was educated at Olchfa School, Swansea[3] before going on to study Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia (UEA).
While studying for his MA at UEA, he won the university's inaugural Curtis Brown Prize for Submarine.
Dunthorne's first novel Submarine, in which a teenager records with comedy and anguish his relationship with his girlfriend and his lop-sided view of the strains on his parents' marriage, was published by Penguin imprint Hamish Hamilton to critical acclaim in 2008.
Shortly afterwards, the novel was made into a film, directed by Richard Ayoade and starring Craig Roberts, Yasmin Paige, Noah Taylor, Paddy Considine, and Sally Hawkins.
An account of a brother and sister living in a rural commune, it went on to win the Royal Society of Literature's Encore Award for Best Second Novel.