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Interrupted Lives: In Literature

As serialised in the Guardian newspaper

Edited by Andrew Motion

Interrupted Lives examines the work of some of our greatest writers whose literary careers were tragically cut short. Six contemporary authors explore what might have happened had these writers lived. They include: Charles Nicholl on Christopher Marlowe; Richard Holmes on Percy Bysshe Shelley; Patricia Duncker on Katherine Mansfield; Ali Smith on Angela Carter; Erica Wagner on Sylvia Plath; and Andrew Motion on Edward Thomas.

Each author approaches the subject in a different way - from the fictional account by Erica Wagner to the analytical observations of Ali Smith - yet together these essays raise a series of difficult but fascinating questions. Had these writers escaped their tragedy, How might their writings have changed? Would their reputations have grown or diminished? and What would their impact be today?

Conceived by Poet Laureate Andrew Motion, this innovative and thought-provoking collection of essays brings an original perspective to the study of literary biography and to the fundamental relationship between life, death and art.

Andrew Motion is Poet Laureate and Professor of Creative Writing
at Royal Holloway College, University of London. He has written biographies of Larkin and Keats, and his most recent collection of
poetry is Public Property.

Specification
210 x 166mm, 96 pages
25 illustrations
ISBN 1 85514 349 6
£9.99 (paperback)
Published September 2004

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