Alan Sillitoe

FRSL The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820, by George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV, to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, th ...

(4 March 192825 April 2010) was an English writer and one of the so-called "

angry young men The "angry young men" were a group of mostly working- and middle-class British playwrights and novelists who became prominent in the 1950s. The group's leading figures included John Osborne and Kingsley Amis; other popular figures included John ...

" of the 1950s. He disliked the label, as did most of the other writers to whom it was applied. He is best known for his

debut novel A debut novel is the first novel a novelist publishes. Debut novels are often the author's first opportunity to make an impact on the publishing industry, and thus the success or failure of a debut novel can affect the ability of the author to p ...

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning ''Saturday Night and Sunday Morning'' is the first novel by British author Alan Sillitoe and won the Author's Club First Novel Award. It was adapted by Sillitoe into a 1960 film starring Albert Finney, directed by Karel Reisz, and in 1964 was ...

'' and his early short story "

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner "The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner" is a short story by Alan Sillitoe, published in 1959 as part of a short story collection of the same title. The work focuses on Smith, a poor Nottingham teenager from a dismal home in a working clas ...

", both of which were adapted into films.

Biography

Sillitoe was born in

Nottingham Nottingham ( , East Midlands English, locally ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Nottinghamshire, East Midlands, England. It is located north-west of London, south-east ...

to working-class parents, Christopher Sillitoe and Sabina (née Burton). Like Arthur Seaton, the anti-hero of his first novel, ''

'', his father worked at the

Raleigh Bicycle Company The Raleigh Bicycle Company is a British bicycle manufacturer based in Nottingham, England and founded by Woodhead and Angois in 1885. Using Raleigh as their brand name, it is one of the oldest bicycle companies in the world. After being acqui ...

's factory in the town. His father was illiterate, violent, and unsteady with his jobs, and the family was often on the brink of starvation. Sillitoe left school at the age of 14, having failed the entrance examination to

grammar school A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching Latin, but more recently an academically oriented secondary school ...

. He worked at the Raleigh factory for the next four years, spending his free time reading prodigiously and being a "serial lover of local girls". He joined the

Air Training Corps The Air Training Corps (ATC) is a British volunteer-military youth organisation. They are sponsored by the Ministry of Defence and the Royal Air Force. The majority of staff are volunteers, and some are paid for full-time work – including C ...

in 1942, then the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...

, albeit too late to serve in the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. He served as a wireless operator in

Malaya Malaya refers to a number of historical and current political entities related to what is currently Peninsular Malaysia in Southeast Asia: Political entities * British Malaya (1826–1957), a loose collection of the British colony of the Straits ...

during the

Emergency An emergency is an urgent, unexpected, and usually dangerous situation that poses an immediate risk to health, life, property, or environment and requires immediate action. Most emergencies require urgent intervention to prevent a worsening ...

. After returning to Britain he was planning to enlist in the

Royal Canadian Air Force The Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF; french: Aviation royale canadienne, ARC) is the air and space force of Canada. Its role is to "provide the Canadian Forces with relevant, responsive and effective airpower". The RCAF is one of three environm ...

when it was discovered that he had

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in ...

. He spent 16 months in an RAF hospital. Pensioned off at the age of 21 on 45 shillings (£2.25) a week, he lived in France and Spain for seven years in an attempt to recover. In 1955, while living in

Mallorca Mallorca, or Majorca, is the largest island in the Balearic Islands, which are part of Spain and located in the Mediterranean. The capital of the island, Palma, is also the capital of the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands. The Bal ...

with the American poet

Ruth Fainlight Ruth Fainlight FRSL (born 2 May 1931) is a U.S.-born poet, short story writer, translator and librettist based in the UK. Life and career Fainlight was born in New York, but has mainly lived in Britain since she was 15, having also spent some y ...

, whom he married in 1959, and in contact with the poet

Robert Graves Captain Robert von Ranke Graves (24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985) was a British poet, historical novelist and critic. His father was Alfred Perceval Graves, a celebrated Irish poet and figure in the Gaelic revival; they were both Celtic ...

, Sillitoe started work on ''Saturday Night and Sunday Morning'', which was published in 1958. Influenced in part by the stripped-down prose of

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century fic ...

, the book conveys the attitudes and situation of a young factory worker faced with the inevitable end of his youthful philandering. As with

John Osborne John James Osborne (12 December 1929 – 24 December 1994) was an English playwright, screenwriter and actor, known for his prose that criticized established social and political norms. The success of his 1956 play ''Look Back in Anger'' tra ...

's ''

Look Back in Anger ''Look Back in Anger'' (1956) is a realist play written by John Osborne. It focuses on the life and marital struggles of an intelligent and educated but disaffected young man of working-class origin, Jimmy Porter, and his equally competent yet i ...

'' and

John Braine John Gerard Braine (13 April 1922 – 28 October 1986) was an English novelist. Braine is usually listed among the angry young men, a loosely defined group of English writers who emerged on the literary scene in the 1950s. Biography John Brain ...

's '' Room at the Top'', the novel's real subject was the disillusionment of post-war Britain and the lack of opportunities for the working class. It was adapted as a

film A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...

Karel Reisz Karel Reisz (21 July 1926 – 25 November 2002) was a Czech-born British filmmaker, one of the pioneers of the new realist strain in British cinema during the 1950s and 1960s. Two of the best-known films he directed are ''Saturday Night and Sun ...

in 1960, with

Albert Finney Albert Finney (9 May 1936 – 7 February 2019) was an English actor. He attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and worked in the theatre before attaining prominence on screen in the early 1960s, debuting with '' The Entertainer'' (1960) ...

as Arthur Seaton; the screenplay was written by Sillitoe. Sillitoe's story ''The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner'', which concerns the rebellion of a

borstal A Borstal was a type of youth detention centre in the United Kingdom, several member states of the Commonwealth and the Republic of Ireland. In India, such a detention centre is known as a Borstal school. Borstals were run by HM Prison Service ...

boy with a talent for running, won the

Hawthornden Prize The Hawthornden Prize is a British literary award that was established in 1919 by Alice Warrender, who was born at Hawthornden Castle. Authors under the age of 41 are awarded on the quality of their "imaginative literature", which can be written ...

in 1959. It was also adapted into a

, in 1962, directed by

Tony Richardson Cecil Antonio "Tony" Richardson (5 June 1928 – 14 November 1991) was an English theatre and film director and producer whose career spanned five decades. In 1964, he won the Academy Award for Best Director for the film ''Tom Jones (1963 film ...

and starring

Tom Courtenay Sir Thomas Daniel Courtenay (; born 25 February 1937) is an English actor. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Courtenay achieved prominence in the 1960s with a series of acclaimed film roles, including ''The Loneliness of t ...

. Sillitoe again wrote the screenplay. With Fainlight he had a child, David. They later adopted another, Susan. Sillitoe lived at various times in

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

, London and

Montpellier Montpellier (, , ; oc, Montpelhièr ) is a city in southern France near the Mediterranean Sea. One of the largest urban centres in the region of Occitania (administrative region), Occitania, Montpellier is the prefecture of the Departments of ...

. In London he was friendly with the bookseller Bernard Stone (who had been born in Nottingham a few years before Sillitoe) and became one of the bohemian crowd that congregated at Stone's Turret Bookshop on Kensington Church Walk. In the 1960s Sillitoe was celebrated in the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

as a spokesman for the "oppressed worker" in the West. Invited to tour the country, he visited several times in the 1960s and in 1968 he was asked to address the Congress of Soviet Writers' Unions, where he denounced Soviet human rights abuses, many of which he had witnessed. In 1990 Sillitoe was awarded an honorary degree by Nottingham Polytechnic, now

Nottingham Trent University Nottingham Trent University (NTU) is a public research university in Nottingham, England. It was founded as a new university in 1992, although its roots go back to 1843 with the establishment of the Nottingham Government School of Design, w ...

. The city's older

Russell Group The Russell Group is a self-selected association of twenty-four public university, public research university, research universities in the United Kingdom. The group is headquartered in Cambridge and was established in 1994 to represent its memb ...

university, the

University of Nottingham The University of Nottingham is a public university, public research university in Nottingham, United Kingdom. It was founded as University College Nottingham in 1881, and was granted a royal charter in 1948. The University of Nottingham belongs t ...

, also awarded him an honorary D.Litt. in 1994. In 2006 his best-known play was staged at the university's Lakeside Arts theatre in an in-house production. Sillitoe wrote many novels and several volumes of poems. His autobiography, ''Life Without Armour'', which was critically acclaimed on publication in 1995, offers a view of his squalid childhood. In an interview Sillitoe claimed that "A writer, if he manages to earn a living at what he's doing, even if it's a very poor living, acquires some of the attributes of the old-fashioned gentleman (if I can be so silly)." ''Gadfly in Russia'', an account of his travels in Russia spanning 40 years, was published in 2007. In 2008 London Books republished ''A Start in Life'' in its London Classics series to mark the author's 80th birthday. Sillitoe appeared on ''

Desert Island Discs ''Desert Island Discs'' is a radio programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It was first broadcast on the BBC Forces Programme on 29 January 1942. Each week a guest, called a " castaway" during the programme, is asked to choose eight recordings (usu ...

'' on

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

on 25 January 2009. Sillitoe's long-held desire for ''Saturday Night and Sunday Morning'' to be remade for a contemporary filmgoing audience was never achieved, despite strong efforts. Danny Brocklehurst was to adapt the book and Sillitoe gave his blessing to the project, but Tony Richardson's estate and Woodfall Films prevented it from going ahead. Sillitoe was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Literature The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) is a learned society founded in 1820, by George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV, to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". A charity that represents the voice of literature in the UK, th ...

in 1997.

Death

Highgate Cemetery - East - Alan Sillitoe 02

Sillitoe died of cancer on 25 April 2010 at

Charing Cross Hospital Charing Cross Hospital is an acute general teaching hospital located in Hammersmith, London, United Kingdom. The present hospital was opened in 1973, although it was originally established in 1818, approximately five miles east, in central Lond ...

in London. He was 82. He is buried in

Highgate Cemetery Highgate Cemetery is a place of burial in north London, England. There are approximately 170,000 people buried in around 53,000 graves across the West and East Cemeteries. Highgate Cemetery is notable both for some of the people buried there as ...

Works

Novels

* ''

'', London: Allen, 1958; New York: Knopf, 1959. New edition (1968) has an introduction by Sillitoe, commentary and notes by David Craig. Longman edition (1976) has a sequence of Nottingham photographs, and stills from the film, Harlow. * '' The General'', London: Allen, 1960; New York: Knopf, 1961 * ''

Key to the Door ''Key to the Door'' is a novel by English author Alan Sillitoe, first published in 1961. Synopsis ''Key to the Door'' is the story of a young man growing up in the grim backstreets of Nottingham, England in the 1940s. He attempts to find a way o ...

'', London: Allen, 1961; New York: Knopf, 1962; reprinted, with a new preface by Sillitoe, London: Allen, 1978 * '' The Death of William Posters'', London: Allen, 1965; New York: Knopf, 1965 * ''A Tree on Fire'', London: Macmillan, 1967; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1968 * '' A Start in Life'', London: Allen, 1970; New York: Scribners, 1971 * ''Travels in Nihilon'', London: Allen, 1971; New York: Scribners, 1972 * ''The Flame of Life'', London: Allen, 1974 * ''

The Widower's Son ''The Widower's Son'' is a 1976 novel by the British writer Alan Sillitoe. It tells the story of a man who leaves the Nottinghamshire coal mines after his friend is killed in an accident and, to his father's disgust, joins the army. When his wife ...

'', Allen, 1976; New York: Harper & Row, 1977 * ''The Storyteller'', London: Allen, 1979; New York: Simon & Schuster, 1980. * ''Her Victory'', London: Granada, 1982; New York: Watts, 1982 * ''The Lost Flying Boat'', London: Granada, 1983; Boston: Little, Brown, 1983 * ''Down from the Hill'', London: Granada, 1984 * ''Life Goes On'', London: Granada, 1985 * ''Out of the Whirlpool''. London: Hutchinson, 1987 * ''

The Open Door ''The Open Door'' is the second studio album by American rock band Evanescence, released on September 25, 2006, by Wind-up Records. The record symbolizes a new beginning for the band, with Amy Lee in full creative control, incorporating new elem ...

'', London: Grafton/Collins, 1989 * ''Last Loves'', London: Grafton, 1990; Boston: Chivers, 1991 * ''Leonard's War: A Love Story''. London: HarperCollins, 1991 * ''Snowstop'', London: HarperCollins, 1993 * ''The Broken Chariot'', London: Flamingo/HarperCollins, 1998 * ''The German Numbers Woman'', London: Flamingo/HarperCollins, 1999 * ''Birthday'', London: Flamingo/HarperCollins, 2001 * ''A Man of His Time'', Flamingo (UK), 2004, ; Harper Perennial (US), 2005. ;

Collections of short stories

* ''

'', London: Allen, 1959; New York: Knopf, 1960 * ''The Ragman’s Daughter and Other Stories'', London: Allen, 1963; New York: Knopf, 1964 * ''Guzman, Go Home, and Other Stories'', London: Macmillan, 1968; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1969; reprinted, with a new preface by Sillitoe, London; Allen, 1979 * ''Men, Women and Children'', London: Allen, 1973; New York: Scribners, 1974 * ''Down to the Bone'', Exeter: Wheaton, 1976 * ''The Second Chance and Other Stories'', London: Cape, 1981; New York: Simon & Schuster, 1981 * ''The Far Side of the Street: Fifteen Short Stories'', London: Allen, 1988 * ''Alligator Playground: A Collection of Short Stories'', Flamingo, 1997, * ''New and Collected Stories'', Carroll and Graf, 2005.

Compilations

* ''Every Day of the Week: An Alan Sillitoe Reader'', with an introduction by John Sawkins London: Allen, 1987 * ''Collected Stories'', London: Flamingo, 1995; New York: HarperCollins, 1996

Writing for children

* ''The City Adventures of Marmalade Jim'', London: Macmillan, 1967; Toronto: Macmillan, 1967; revised ed., London: Robson, 1977 * ''Big John and the Stars'', London: Robson, 1977 * ''The Incredible Fencing Fleas'', London: Robson, 1978. Illus. Mike Wilks. * ''Marmalade Jim at the Farm'', London: Robson, 1980 * ''Marmalade Jim and the Fox'', London: Robson, 1984

Essays/travel

* ''Road to Volgograd'', London: Allen, 1964; New York: Knopf, 1964 * ''Raw Material'', London: Allen, 1972; New York: Scribners, 1973; rev. ed., London: Pan Books, 1974; further revised, London: Star Books, 1978; further revised, London: Allen, 1979 * ''Mountains and Caverns: Selected Essays'', London: Allen, 1975 * ''Words Broadsheet Nineteen'', by Sillitoe and Ruth Fainlight. Bramley, Surrey: Words Press, 1975. Broadside * ''"The Interview"'', London: The 35s (Women's Campaign for Soviet Jewry), 1976 * ''Israel: Poems on a Hebrew Theme'', with drawings by Ralph Steadman; London: Steam Press, 1981 98 copies. * ''The Saxon Shore Way: From Gravesend to Rye'', by Sillitoe and Fay Godwin. London: Hutchinson, 1983 * ''Alan Sillitoe’s Nottinghamshire'', with photographs by David Sillitoe. London: Grafton, 1987 * ''Shylock the Writer'', London: Turret Bookshop, 1991 * ''The Mentality of the Picaresque Hero'', London: Turret Bookshop, 1993, Turret Papers, no. 2. (500 copies) * ''Leading the Blind: A Century of Guidebook Travel. 1815-1914'', London: Macmillan, 1995 * ''Gadfly in Russia'', JR Books, 2007

Plays

* ''Three Plays'', London: Allen, 1978 Contains ''The Slot-Machine'', ''The Interview'', ''Pit Strike''

Autobiography

*''Life Without Armour'', (HarperCollins, 1995) ,

Collections of poems

* ''Without Beer or Bread'', Dulwich Village: Outposts, 1957 * ''The Rats and Other Poems'', London: Allen, 1960 * ''Falling Out of Love and Other Poems'', London; Allen, 1964; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1964 * ''Shaman and Other Poems"'', Turret, 1968 (Limited ed. of 500 copies, 100 copies signed and numbered) * ''Love in the Environs of Voronezh and Other Poems'', London: Macmillan, 1968; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1969. * ''Poems'', by Sillitoe, Ruth Fainlight and Ted Hughes; London: Rainbow Press, 1971. (300 copies) * ''From Canto Two of The Rats'', Wittersham, Kent: Alan Sillitoe, 1973 * ''Barbarians and Other Poems'', London: Turret Books, 1973. 500 copies * ''Storm: New Poems'', London: Allen, 1974 * ''Somme'', London: Steam Press, 1974. In Steam Press Portfolio, no. 2. 50 copies * ''Day-Dream Communiqué'', Knotting, Bedfordshire: Sceptre Press, 1977. 150 copies * ''From Snow on the North Side of Lucifer'', Knotting, Bedfordshire: Sceptre Press, 1979. (150 copies) * ''Snow on the North Side of Lucifer: Poems'', London: Allen, 1979 * ''Poems for Shakespeare 7'', Bear Gardens Museum and Arts Centre, 1979 (Limited to 500 numbered copies) * ''More Lucifer'', Knotting, Bedfordshire: Martin Booth, 1980. 125 copies * ''Sun Before Departure: Poems, 1974–1982'', London: Granada, 1984 * ''Tides and Stone Walls: Poems'', with photographs by Victor Bowley; London: Grafton, 1986 * ''Three Poems'', Child Okefurd, Dorset: Words Press, 1988. 200 copies * ''Collected Poems'', London: HarperCollins, 1993

Film scripts

* ''

'' (1960) (screenplay based on own novel) * ''

'' (1962) (screenplay based on own short story) * ''

Counterpoint In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more musical lines (or voices) which are harmonically interdependent yet independent in rhythm and melodic contour. It has been most commonly identified in the European classical tradi ...

'' (1967) (based on his novel ''The General'') * ''

The Ragman's Daughter ''The Ragman's Daughter'' is a 1972 British romantic crime–drama film directed by Harold Becker and adapted by Alan Sillitoe from his short story of the same name. It was Becker's first film during the 1970s and stars Simon Rouse and, in her ...

'' (1972) (based on short story)

Translations

*''Chopin's Winter in Majorca 1838–1839'', by Luis Ripoll, translated by Sillitoe. Palma de Majorca: Mossen Alcover, 1955 *''Chopin’s Pianos: The Pleyel in Majorca,'' by Luis Ripoll, translated by Sillitoe. Palma de Majorca: Mossen Alcover, 1958 * ''All Citizens Are Soldiers (Fuente Ovejuna): A Play in Two Acts'', by

Lope de Vega Félix Lope de Vega y Carpio ( , ; 25 November 156227 August 1635) was a Spanish playwright, poet, and novelist. He was one of the key figures in the Spanish Golden Age of Baroque literature. His reputation in the world of Spanish literature ...

, translated by Sillitoe and Ruth Fainlight. London: Macmillan, 1969; Chester Springs, PA: Dufour, 1969 * ''Poems for Shakespeare, volume 7'', edited and translated by Sillitoe and Ruth Fainlight. London: Bear Gardens Museum & Arts Centre, 1980

References

Sources

Reuters

External links

* *

Ramsay Wood Ramsay Wood is the author of two sui generis modern novels which aim – via vernacular spiels within complex frame-story narratives – to popularize the pre-literate, oral story-listening drama of multicultural animal fables mimed and declaim ...

's 1971 interview 'Alan Sillitoe: The Image Shedding the Author', Four Quarters,

La Salle University La Salle University () is a private, Catholic university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The university was founded in 1863 by the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools and named for St. Jean-Baptiste de La Salle. History La ...

, Philadelphia, on

Robert Twigger Robert Twigger (born 30 October 1962) is a British artist and writer. He travels widely but divides his time mostly between the UK and Egypt. Life Twigger was educated at Balliol College, Oxford University. He initially studied engineering, but ...

's blog 6 August 201
LeftLion interview with Alan SillitoeLeftLion obituary for Alan SillitoeThe start of Alan Sillitoe : How Sillitoe stood apart from the tradition of other Northern novelists going soft and successful in the South; Times online 1 October 2008Contemporary Writers: Alan Sillitoe

Guardian article, 2011

Alan Sillitoe describes his life as a smoker prior to the England smoking ban

* ttp://www.london-books.co.uk London Books
Sillitoe Trail iPhone App
James Walker and Paul Fillingham, Commissioned by Arts Council England and BBC. 28 October 2012. {{DEFAULTSORT:Sillitoe, Alan 1928 births 2010 deaths 20th-century British short story writers 20th-century English novelists 20th-century English poets British male poets Burials at Highgate Cemetery Deaths from cancer in England English male novelists English male short story writers English short story writers English socialists Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature Military personnel from Nottingham Royal Air Force personnel of the Malayan Emergency Writers from Nottingham

Biography

Death

Works

Novels

Collections of short stories

Compilations

Writing for children

Essays/travel

Plays

Autobiography

Collections of poems

Film scripts

Translations

References

Sources

Further reading

External links