Paul Scott: A Life of the Author of the Raj Quartet
by Hilary Spurling
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Shortly before his death in 1978, Paul Scott won the Booker Prize for Fiction. In this biography, the author explores Scott's family background in North London, his war years in India and the Far East, the development of his fiction and the characters on whom his most famous creations were based.Tags
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2419 Paul Scott: A Life of the Author of The Raj Quartet, by Hilary Spurling (read 10 Nov 1991) I read the Raj Quartet and Staying On, the Booker winner written by Scott, as well as two other novels by him, and saw the PBS series, and the whole set of books is vivid in my memory. So this book was extremely attention-holding. After a youthful homosexual period and before going to India in World War II Scott married and this book, written with the cooperation of his widow (who was divorcing him until he got terminal cancer) and two daughters, does not indicate he deviated after that. He drank like a fish, and had cirrhosis of the liver. He was born in the London area March 25, 1920, and died March 1, 1978. This is the most modern show more biography (as to subject) I believe I've read, and it read a lot different than other biographies of authors I've read. It was absorbing, and, though Scott was not an admirable person, I believe I've read the most significant of his work. This book was striking in telling of a visit to a primitive Indian village in 1964 by Scott, and how revolted he was by the difference in the culture. This was a very well-worth reading book. show less
Biography of the British author of The Raj Quartet.
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Hilary Spurling was born in 1940 in Stockport England. She attended Somerville College in Oxford. She bacame the arts and theater critic for The Spectator during the 1960's. She was also the reviewer for The Observer and The Daily Telegraph. She has written several biographies including Pearl Buck in China and Matisse the Master: The Conquest of show more Colour 1909-1954, which won the 2005 Whitebread Book of the Year Award and the Los Angeles Book Prize for Biography in 2006. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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- Paul Scott
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