Sir Malcolm Bradbury, one of the most prolific and influential novelists, critics and academics of his generation, died unexpectedly yesterday at the age of 68.
He
had been unwell for some months with breathing difficulties but his illness had
not been regarded as serious. News of his death - less than a year after he was
knighted in the new year honours list - stunned his
friends. He had been moved at the weekend into a hospice near his home at
Norwich.
He
lived in the area for 30 years and was renowned as founder of the University of
East Anglia's creative writing school, which has produced a crop of eminent
fellow-novelists including the Booker prize winners Kazuo Ishiguro and Ian
McEwan. He was the school's emeritus professor.
Last
night his friend, the novelist Rose Tremain, said Sir
Malcolm had suffered since last summer from a condition known as cryptogenic
organising pneumonia (COP).
He
was being treated with steroids. But, Ms Tremain
said: "We were all very worried because he seemed to be having a reaction
to steroids." His agent Jonathan Begg said:
"We thought his illness was being kept under control. It was not expected
to come to this. I am very sad. We were all very fond of Malcolm. He was a
great novelist, a great literary critic and a favourite author.
"One
of the amazing things was to see the way he could work in so many different
genres. He had a gift for tying up the strands of his work in a way that made
sense. He had such a strong grasp of all the facets of his gift.
"In
the last couple of months, when he was really quite ill at home, he was writing
away every day: that's what he did in his life - write."
Ian
McEwan said last night: "What was superb about him was that his mind was
always open, he never became an old fart. He was an ambassador for the British
novel and he was marvellous at it.
"The
real tragedy is that his latest book is really his major work. It's a real
novel of ideas and he was looking forward to going to America to promote
it."
Ms
Tremain said: "He wore his erudition and his
scholarliness with great grace. He had a wonderful sense of humour. He came
first at the party and was the last to leave."
David
Lodge, novelist and academic, said: "I feel quite an extraordinary sense
of loss personally. He was something of an inspiration to me when I was
starting out."
Sir
Malcolm leaves a widow, Elizabeth, and two sons. His early fame as a writer was
as a sharp, disillusioned chronicler first of redbrick universities, then of
staff antics on the 1960s "plate-glass" campuses.
He
published five novels, the first, Eating People is Wrong, in 1959. The best
known is still The History Man (1975), his televised satire about a far-left
careerist academic inching towards Thatcherism.
He
also adapted eight books for television, including Tom Sharpe’s Porterhouse
Blue, and wrote episodes of Inspector Morse and Kavanagh
QC.
Published by John Ezard, Jeevan Vasagar and Maev
Kennedy
The Guardian, Tuesday November 28 2000
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2000/nov/28/books.education
Other interesting articles
about his death: [Next] [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
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Creada: 06/110/2008
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