He was due to celebrate his 90th birthday at the end of the month. British novelist David Lodge died this Wednesday, January 1, announced his publisher, Vintage (Pinguin Random House). The author has touched on all literary genres.
The novel, of course, with the success of its trilogy about academia, describes with great irony: Change of scenery (1975), A very small world (1984) et Board game (1988). A world that he knows by heart, since he became a lecturer in English literature at the University of Birmingham from 1960, while publishing his first novel, The Picturegoers.
A writer marked by the Second World War
He remained a teacher in this prestigious establishment until the end of his career. He also wrote numerous essays on the theory of literature, including The Art of Fictionpublished in 1992.
Nowadays, such profiles no longer exist. David Lodge came from a modest background and grew up in a suburb of south London. He was born on January 28, 1935, to a musician father and a secretary mother, both Catholics. He later distanced himself from religion, a subject eminently present in his books.
Studious, he graduated from University College London. But it was several stays in the United States that further trained him. In any case, he says he is marked by the Second World War and the bombings. With his own humor, he has always affirmed that this moment was “quite favorable” for the construction of his career as an English writer.
Or, according to the title of the first volume of his memoirs, he was “born at the right time” (Quite a good time to be born). The third and final volume of his autobiography, Succeed, more or lesswas published in France in 2023.
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