Alan Sillitoe - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Alan Sillitoe was an English writer and one of the "Angry Young Men

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 members included John Osborne and Kingsley Amis.The phrase was originally coined by the Royal Court Theatre's press officer to promote John...

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

Biography

Sillitoe was born in Nottingham

Nottingham

Nottingham is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England. It is located in the ceremonial county of Nottinghamshire and represents one of eight members of the English Core Cities Group...

, to working class

Working class

Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...

parents. Like Arthur Seaton, the anti-hero of his first novel Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, his father worked at the Raleigh

Raleigh Bicycle Company

The Raleigh Bicycle Company is a bicycle manufacturer originally based in Nottingham, UK. It is one of the oldest bicycle companies in the world. From 1921 to 1935 Raleigh also produced motorcycles and three-wheel cars, leading to the formation of the Reliant Company.-Early years:Raleigh's history...

factory.

He left school at the age of 14 and worked at the Raleigh

Raleigh Bicycle Company

factory for the next four years, spending his free time reading. He then joined the Royal Air Force

Royal Air Force

The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...

, serving as a wireless operator in Malaya

Malayan Union

The Malayan Union was a federation of the Malay states and the Straits Settlements of Penang and Malacca. It was the successor to British Malaya and was conceived to unify the Malay Peninsula under a single government so as to simplify administration. The Malayan Union later became the independent...

. After returning to England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, he was discovered to have tuberculosis

Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...

and spent 16 months in an RAF hospital.

Pensioned off at 21 on 45 shillings a week, he lived in France and Spain for seven years in an attempt to recover. In 1955, while living in Mallorca

Mallorca

Majorca or Mallorca is an island located in the Mediterranean Sea, one of the Balearic Islands.The capital of the island, Palma, is also the capital of the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands. The Cabrera Archipelago is administratively grouped with Majorca...

with his partner, American poet Ruth Fainlight

Ruth Fainlight

Ruth Fainlight , is a poet, short story writer, translator and librettist.-Life and career:Fainlight was born in New York, but has mainly lived in England since she was fifteen, having also spent some years living in France and Spain. She studied for two years at the Birmingham and Brighton...

, and in contact with the poet Robert Graves

Robert Graves

Robert von Ranke Graves 24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985 was an English poet, translator and novelist. During his long life he produced more than 140 works...

, Sillitoe started work on Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
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 adapted by David Brett as a play for the Nottingham...

, which was published in 1958. Influenced in part by the stripped-down prose of Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...

, 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 Osborne

John James Osborne was an English playwright, screenwriter, actor and critic of the Establishment. The success of his 1956 play Look Back in Anger transformed English theatre....

's Look Back in Anger
Look Back in Anger
Look Back in Anger is a John Osborne play—made into films in 1959, 1980, and 1989 -- about a love triangle involving an intelligent but disaffected young man , his upper-middle-class, impassive wife , and her haughty best friend . Cliff, an amiable Welsh lodger, attempts to keep the peace...

and John Braine

John Braine

John Gerard Braine was an English novelist. Braine is usually associated with the Angry Young Men movement.-Biography:...

's Room at the Top
Room at the Top (novel)
Room at the Top , by John Braine, tells the rise of an ambitious young man of humble origin, and the socio-economic struggles undergone in realising his social ambitions in post-war Britain...

, the novel's real subject was the disillusionment of postwar Britain, and the lack of opportunities for the working class. It was adapted as a film by Karel Reisz

Karel Reisz

Karel Reisz was a Czech-born British filmmaker who was active in post–war Britain, and one of the pioneers of the new realist strain in 1950s and 1960s British cinema.-Early life:...

in 1960, with Albert Finney

Albert Finney

Albert Finney is an English actor. He achieved prominence in films in the early 1960s, and has maintained a successful career in theatre, film and television....

as Arthur Seaton.

Sillitoe's story The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner
"The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner" is a short story by Alan Sillitoe which was set in Irvine Beach, and published in 1959 as part of a short story collection of the same name. The work focuses on Colin, a poor Nottingham teenager from a dismal home in a blue-collar area, who has bleak...

, which concerns the rebellion of a borstal

Borstal

A borstal was a type of youth prison in the United Kingdom, run by the Prison Service and intended to reform seriously delinquent young people. The word is sometimes used loosely to apply to other kinds of youth institution or reformatory, such as Approved Schools and Detention Centres. The court...

boy with a talent for running, won the Hawthornden Prize

Hawthornden Prize

The Hawthornden Prize is a British literary award that was established in 1919 by Alice Warrender. Authors are awarded on the quality of their "imaginative literature" which can be written in either poetry or prose...

in 1959. It was also adapted to film, in 1962, this time directed by Tony Richardson

Tony Richardson

Cecil Antonio "Tony" Richardson was an English theatre and film director and producer.-Early life:Richardson was born in Shipley, Yorkshire in 1928, the son of Elsie Evans and Clarence Albert Richardson, a chemist...

and starring Tom Courtenay

Tom Courtenay

Sir Thomas Daniel "Tom" Courtenay is an English actor who came to prominence in the early 1960s with a succession of films including The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner , Billy Liar , and Dr. Zhivago . Since the mid-1960s he has been known primarily for his work in the theatre...

.

He married Ruth Fainlight, with whom he had a child, David; Susan was later adopted. He lived in Kent and London.

In 1990, Sillitoe was awarded an honorary degree from Nottingham Trent University

Nottingham Trent University

Nottingham Trent University is a public teaching and research university in Nottingham, United Kingdom. It was founded as a new university in 1992 from the existing Trent Polytechnic , however it can trace its roots back to 1843 with the establishment of the Nottingham Government School of Design...

. The city's older Russell Group

Russell Group

The Russell Group is a collaboration of twenty UK universities that together receive two-thirds of research grant and contract funding in the United Kingdom. It was established in 1994 to represent their interests to the government, parliament and other similar bodies...

university the University of Nottingham also awarded him an honorary DLitt 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 poetry. His 1995 autobiography, Life Without Armour was critically acclaimed on publication, and offers a view into his squalid childhood. In an interview Sillitoe claimed, "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)."

In 2007 Gadfly in Russia, an account of his travels in Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

spanning 40 years, was published. In 2008 London Books republished A Start in Life as part of its London Classics series and to mark the author's 80th birthday. Sillitoe appeared on BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4

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

's Desert Island Discs
Desert Island Discs
Desert Island Discs is a BBC Radio 4 programme first broadcast on 29 January 1942. It is the second longest-running radio programme , and is the longest-running factual programme in the history of radio...

on 25 January 2009.

His long-held desire for Saturday Night and Sunday Morning to be remade for a contemporary audience was never achieved despite strong efforts. The film was blocked by the late Natasha Richardson

Natasha Richardson

Natasha Jane Richardson was an English actress of stage and screen. A member of the Redgrave family, she was the daughter of actress Vanessa Redgrave and director/producer Tony Richardson and the granddaughter of Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson...

, who inherited the rights to the book from her father. Danny Brocklehurst was set to adapt the book and Sillitoe gave his blessing to the project. The Richardson estate and Woodfall films refused this request.

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature

Royal Society of Literature

The Royal Society of Literature is the "senior literary organisation in Britain". It was founded in 1820 by George IV, in order to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". The Society's first president was Thomas Burgess, who later became the Bishop of Salisbury...

in 1997.

Fiction

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
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 adapted by David Brett as a play for the Nottingham...

, London: Allen, 1958; New York: Knopf, 1959. New edition with an introduction by Sillitoe, commentary and notes by David Craig. In the Longman edition (1976) there is a sequence of Nottingham photographs, and stills from the film, Harlow.
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner
"The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner" is a short story by Alan Sillitoe which was set in Irvine Beach, and published in 1959 as part of a short story collection of the same name. The work focuses on Colin, a poor Nottingham teenager from a dismal home in a blue-collar area, who has bleak...

, London: Allen, 1959; New York: Knopf, 1960
The General, London: Allen, 1960; New York: Knopf, 1961
Key to the Door, London: Allen, 1961; New York: Knopf, 1962; reprinted, with a new preface by Sillitoe, London: Allen, 1978
Road To Volgograd, London: Allen, 1964; New York: Knopf, 1964
The Death of William Posters, London: Allen, 1965; New York: Knopf, 1965
The City Adventures of Marmalade Jim, London: Macmillan, 1967; Toronto: Macmillan, 1967; revised edition, London: Robson, 1977
A Tree on Fire, London: Macmillan, 1967; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1968
A Sillitoe Selection: Eight Short Stories,. London: Longman, 1968
A Start in Life, London: Allen, 1970; New York: Scribners, 1971
Travels in Nihilon, London: Allen, 1971; New York: Scribners, 1972
Men, Women and Children, London: Allen, 1973; New York: Scribners, 1974
From Canto Two of The Rats, Wittersham, Kent: Alan Sillitoe, 1973
Somme, London: Steam Press, 1974. In Steam Press Portfolio, no. 2. 50 copies
The Flame of Life, London: Allen, 1974
Down to the Bone, Exeter: Wheaton, 1976
Day-Dream Communiqué, Knotting, Bedfordshire: Sceptre Press, 1977. 150 copies
Big John and the Stars, London: Robson, 1977
The Widower's Son, Allen, 1976; New York: Harper & Row, 1977
The Incredible Fencing Fleas, London: Robson, 1978. Illus. Mike Wilks.
The Storyteller, London: Allen, 1979; New York: Simon & Schuster, 1980.
Marmalade Jim at the Farm, London: Robson, 1980
More Lucifer, Knotting, Bedfordshire: Martin Booth, 1980. 125 copies
Her Victory, London: Granada, 1982; New York: Watts, 1982
The Lost Flying Boat, London: Granada, 1983; Boston: Little, Brown, 1983
The Saxon Shore Way: From Gravesend to Rye, by Sillitoe and Fay Godwin. London: Hutchinson, 1983
Down from the Hill, London: Granada, 1984
Marmalade Jim and the Fox, London: Robson, 1984
Life Goes On, London: Granada, 1985
Out of the Whirlpool. London: Hutchinson, 1987
Every Day of the Week: An Alan Sillitoe Reader. Introd. John Sawkins. London: W. H. Allen, 1987.
The Open Door, London: Grafton/Collins, 1989
Last Loves, London: Grafton, 1990; Boston: Chivers, 1991
Leonard's War A Love Story. London: HarperCollins, 1991
Shylock the Writer, London: Turret Bookshop, 1991
The Mentality of the Picaresque Hero, London: Turret Bookshop, 1993, Turret Papers, no. 2. 500 copies
Snowstop, London: HarperCollins, 1993
Life Without Armour. London: HarperCollins, 1995. (autobiography)
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, ISBN 000717327X; Harper Perennial (US), 2005. ISBN 0007173288; ISBN 9780007173280

Film

The Ragman's Daughter (1972) (based on novel)
Counterpoint
Counterpoint
In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm and are harmonically interdependent . It has been most commonly identified in classical music, developing strongly during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period,...

(1967) (based on novel The General)
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (film)
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner is a 1962 film, based on the short story of the same name.The screenplay, like the short story, was written by Alan Sillitoe....

(1962) (screenplay based on own short story)
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (film)
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning is a 1960 British film. It is an adaptation of the 1958 novel of the same name by Alan Sillitoe. Sillitoe wrote the screenplay adaptation and the film was directed by Karel Reisz.-Synopsis:...

(1960) (screenplay based on own novel)

Translations

Chopin’s Winter in Majorca 1838–1839, by Luis Ripall, translated by Sillitoe. Palma de Majorca: Mossen Alcover, 1955
Chopin’s Pianos: The Pleyel in Majorca, by Luis Ripall, translated by Sillitoe. Palma de Majorca: Mossen Alcover, 1958
All Citizens Are Soldiers (Fuente Ovejuna): A Play in Two Acts, by Lope de Vega
Lope de Vega
Félix Arturo Lope de Vega y Carpio was a Spanish playwright and poet. He was one of the key figures in the Spanish Golden Century Baroque 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

Poetry

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
Barbarians and Other Poems, London: Turret Books, 1973. 500 copies
Storm: New Poems, London: Allen, 1974
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 copies all copies are numbered
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

Essays

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.
Alan Sillitoe’s Nottinghamshire, with photographs by David Sillitoe. London: Grafton, 1987

Plays

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

Compilations

Every Day of the Week: An Alan Sillitoe Reader, with an introduction by John Sawkins London: Allen, 1987
Collected Stories, London: Flamingo, 1995

Collections of stories

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
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
Collected Stories. New York: HarperCollins, 1996.
Alligator Playground: A Collection of Short Stories, Flamingo, 1997, ISBN 0006550738
New and Collected Stories, Carroll and Graf, 2005. ISBN 078671476X

Autobiography

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
Life Without Armour, (HarperCollins, 1995) ISBN 0002555700, ISBN 9780002555708

External links

Ramsay Wood
Ramsay Wood
Ramsay Wood is a writer best known for his modernized compilation of the ancient animal fables derived from The Panchatantra. His Kalila and Dimna-- Selected Fables of Bidpai was published by Knopf in 1980...

's 1971 interview 'Alan Sillitoe: The Image Shedding the Author', Four Quarters, La Salle University
La Salle University
La Salle University is a private, co-educational, Roman Catholic university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. Named for St. Jean-Baptiste de La Salle, the school was founded in 1863 by the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools. As of 2008 the school has approximately 7,554...

, Philadelphia, on Robert Twigger
Robert Twigger
Robert Twigger is a British poet, writer and explorer. He lives in Cairo, Egypt.-Life:Twigger was educated at Balliol College, Oxford University. He first began to study engineering, but after six weeks switched to politics, philosophy and economics. His attendance record was poor, and he left...

's blog 6 August 2011 http://www.roberttwigger.com/
LeftLion interview with Alan Sillitoe
LeftLion obituary for Alan Sillitoe
The 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 2008
Contemporary Writers: Alan Sillitoe
Guardian article, 2004
Guardian article, 2011
Alan Sillitoe describes his life as a smoker prior to the England smoking ban
The White Horse Public House made famous in 'Saturday Night & Sunday Morning'
London Books
Lastingtribute.co.uk, online tribute page

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