The Life of a Long-Distance Writer: A Biography of Alan Sillitoe

Written with the close cooperation of Alan Sillitoe himself, The Life of a Long Distance Writer is not only the definitive work on the legendary writer in his 80th birthday year, it also promises to be perhaps the most controversial literary biography of the last decade. Alan Sillitoe has allowed Richard Bradford unrestriced access to his papers and personal archive, enabling Bradford to build the first comprehensive portrait of this brilliant and often contradictory figure. Within it, Bradford reveals—among other things—that Sillitoe, though proud of his background and Nottingham hometown, rejects the "working-class writer" tag that has been thrust on him, loathes political correctness in all its forms, and has retained for a long time a somewhat unfashionable Zionism, strongly sympathetic to those who want to protect the Jewish homeland. As well as this, Bradford delves into Silltoe's literary and artistic liasions across mediums, perhaps most notably a long and close friendship with Poet Laureate Ted Hughes.