Known in particular for his campus trilogy in which he ironically depicts the university environment, the English author died a few days before his 90th birthday.
David Lodge, illustrious British writer, has died at the age of 89, his publishing house, Penguin Random House, announced this Friday, December 3. “His contribution to literary culture has been immense, both through his criticism and through his masterful and emblematic novels which have already become classics,” she greeted. His children expressed their pride in “his achievements” et “of the pleasure which his works of fiction, in particular, have given to so many people”.
His nearly thirty-year career as a literature professor led David Lodge to devote part of his work to the academic world. Under sarcastic and ironic features, he romanticizes this environment, particularly with its “campus trilogy” : Change of scenery, A very small world, Board game. He draws inspiration from his experience but also from a long study trip to the United States. Throughout his career, he devoted himself to writing around twenty novels and non-fiction works. He also writes scripts for television and plays.
Never won the Booker Prize
David Lodge is one of the great authors of his time. He was twice nominated for the equivalent of the British Goncourt Prize, the Booker Prize, in 1984 and 1988. Although he chaired the prize in 1989, he never won it. He confided to Liberation in 2019 having experienced the disappointment of no other of his novels being nominated for the holy grail of English literature. He then said: “the fact that a book is not chosen as one of the six best novels in the entire annual harvest does not constitute a dishonor, but not being among the twelve best or more is not easy to take. » However, he admitted to having “was lucky to be nominated twice in this competition at a time when his influence was at its zenith”.
David Lodge still received prestigious awards, such as the Hawthornden Prize, for the first volume of his “campus trilogy”. His work was also recognized when he was appointed Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters in 1997, Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1998. In 1976, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. But despite this, the Times declared in 2018 that David Lodge was “probably the most distinguished novelist of his generation not to have won” le Booker Prize.
The old man with bushy eyebrows and mischievous smile was born in London on January 28, 1935. A period that the musician's son described, in his typical deadpan humorous style, as “fairly favorable” to be born. He grew up in the south suburbs of London, in a modest environment. The university is there “an unknown territory”. Encouraged by his college teachers, this gifted student at school entered University College London and studied literature there. In 1960, he began teaching English literature at the University of Birmingham, where he spent his entire career and which inspired his work. His latest work, the final part of his autobiography, Succeed, more or less, published in France in 2023, traces his life from his 50s to his 84th years.
