JG Farrell: The Making of a Writer

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9 781859 184899 ISBN 978-1-85918-489-9 www.corkuniversitypress.com Cover image: J.G. Farrell, courtesy Michael Leonard Cover: Burns Design NEW EXPANDED EDITION NEW EXPANDED EDITION Lavinia Greacen J.G. Farrell The making of a writer J.G. Farrell The making of a writer LAVINIA GREACEN T his expanded new edition of the biography of the Booker prize-winning author J.G. Farrell (1935-1979) is timely. His literary star is still in the ascendant, as proved by the posthumous award in 2010 of the ‘Lost’ Booker for Troubles, decided by international e-vote. That made him a double Booker winner, and the widespread media publicity left the reading public wanting to know more. This is a fascinating and compelling story about the man hailed by Kazuo Ishiguro as ‘a true master’, and by Professor Roy Foster as ‘one of the very best novelists writing in English in the later twentieth century.’ Among his myriad admirers today are fellow Bookerwinners Ian McEwan, John Banville and Hilary Mantel. Farrell’s life is almost stranger than fiction. He was a schoolboy sporting hero struck down by polio, a confirmed bachelor who became the lover of many women, and a dedicated novelist living on a shoestring who won the Booker Prize in 1973. Tragically, with his literary reputation secure at last and a new home on the west Cork coast, he was drowned at the age of 44 while fishing from rocks nearby. This expanded biography tells the moving story of his peripatetic life. It ranges from his childhood in Ireland to public school and university in England; from his base in London, where most of his novels took shape, to extended stays in France and the United States, and to periods spent in Mexico, India, Vietnam and Singapore. Readers will discover that Farrell’s celebrated Empire Trilogy, which includes Troubles, The Siege of Krishnapur and The Singapore Grip, reflect his own travels and personal experiences, transformed by his unique wit and imagination. This widely-praised biography reveals the private man behind the celebrated literary novelist. ‘After reading it,’ wrote Gerald Dawe, Senior Lecturer in English at Trinity College, Dublin, ‘I felt not only that I knew J.G. Farrell, but that I, too, mourned his loss as if he were a friend.’ Lavinia Greacen lives in County Dublin and is the author of JG Farrell in His Own Words, Selected Letters and Diaries (Cork University Press, 2009). J.G.Farrell's novels approached troubled colonial histories with creative genius and profound empathy; recognition of his stature has grown in the years since his untimely death. In my opinion he stands as one of the very best novelists writing in English in the later twentieth century. Prof. Roy Foster Time has burnished Farrell's reputation and he is recognised as a central figure in British literature of the twentieth century's second half. Nothing has surpassed the imaginative reach of his exploration of our colonial past. Ian McEwan I've always regarded JG Farrell as a true master.... He wrote with such generosity and insight about individuals caught in the large tides of history, and he managed to combine perfectly his almost C19th -style storytelling gifts with a subtly modern sensibility. Kazuo Ishiguro 9 781859 184899 ISBN 978-1-85918-489-9 www.corkuniversitypress.com Cover image: J.G. Farrell, courtesy Michael Leonard Cover: Burns Design NEW EXPANDED EDITION NEW EXPANDED EDITION Lavinia Greacen J.G. Farrell The making of a writer J.G. Farrell The making of a writer LAVINIA GREACEN T his expanded new edition of the biography of the Booker prize-winning author J.G. Farrell (1935-1979) is timely. His literary star is still in the ascendant, as proved by the posthumous award in 2010 of the ‘Lost’ Booker for Troubles, decided by international e-vote. That made him a double Booker winner, and the widespread media publicity left the reading public wanting to know more. This is a fascinating and compelling story about the man hailed by Kazuo Ishiguro as ‘a true master’, and by Professor Roy Foster as ‘one of the very best novelists writing in English in the later twentieth century.’ Among his myriad admirers today are fellow Bookerwinners Ian McEwan, John Banville and Hilary Mantel. Farrell’s life is almost stranger than fiction. He was a schoolboy sporting hero struck down by polio, a confirmed bachelor who became the lover of many women, and a dedicated novelist living on a shoestring who...