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Nicholas Murray is the author of biographies of Bruce Chatwin, Matthew Arnold, Andrew Marvell, Aldous Huxley, and Franz Kafka. He is a biographer, poet, novelist and critic.
This page was updated: 5 May 2008 Contact Nicholas Murray:- |
__________________________________________________ WHAT'S NEW... The Victorian Travellers Nicholas Murray's latest book A Corkscrew is Most Useful: the Travellers of Empire has just been published by Little, Brown
Liverpool City of Culture Brave New World Poetry Reading at Philip Larkin Centre for Poetry and Creative Writing, University of Hull Nicholas Murray read from his most recent poetry collection The Narrators (Rack Press, 2006) at the Phlip Larkin centre, Tuesday 20th March. 2007. Nicholas Murray, in a recent book paying tribute to Sybille Bedford, In Memory (Eland) has a chapter on Bedford's relationship with the Huxleys. He also wrote in a recent issue of Areté magazine [No 20, Spring/Summer 2006] about his conversations with the writer who died in February 2006, aged 94. Sybille Bedford was a novelist and travel writer who wrote the first authorised life of Aldous Huxley thirty years ago. Nicholas Murray interviewed her several times when writing his own biography, Aldous Huxley: An English Intellectual (2002) and the piece gives a picture of the writer at the very end of her life and contains some previously undisclosed information about Huxley. For information about how to obtain the article see www.aretemagazine.com. Huxley, Orwell and Twentieth Century Utopian Fiction Nicholas
Murray delivered a lecture on 20 July 2006 to the Scottish
Universities' International Summer School on theutopian fictions of
Aldous Huxley and George Orwell. Your Favourite Martians... On Monday 20 November 2006 on BBC4 Nicholas Murray was interviewed in a programme about the famous twentieth century dystopias of Aldous Huxley and George Orwell as part of BBC4's "Science Fiction Britannia" season. Part 2 of "The Martians and Us" was made by Blast Films for BBC4.. A videoclip of the Murray interview can be seen at http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mysciencefictionlife/A16381280 Kafka Lecture in Edinburgh Nicholas
Murray gave the seventh annual lecture of the Scottish Czech and Slovak
Summer Scholarship Fund in Edinburgh's St Cecilia's Hall on 22 April
2006 Publishing Dumbs Down... The January issue (Dec/Jan 2005-6, No 174) of the magazine Planet had an article by Nicholas Murray on the crisis in contemporary publishing. To subscribe to Planet visit To read this article click here About the Author Nicholas Murray is a freelance author based in Wales and London. Born in Liverpool in 1952 he is the author of several literary biographies (see Bibliography), two collections of poems, and two novels. He is a regular contributor of poems, essays and reviews to newspapers and literary magazines such as The Independent, London Magazine, Thumbscrew, Metre, Poetry Wales, New Welsh Review, Planet, Times Literary Supplement, Areté and many others. In 1996 he was the inaugural Gladys Krieble Delmas Fellow at the British Library Centre for the Book and he is a member of the Welsh Academy and of English PEN. He has lectured at literary festivals and universities in Britain, Europe and the United States. He is currently a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Queen Mary University of London.
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| Author Interviews Bibliography A TOUR OF MY BOOKS Click HERE for more information on the titles below Bruce Chatwin (1993) Seren Books (revised edition with new afterword, 1995). Plausible Fictions (1995). Rack Press [poems]. A Life of Matthew Arnold (1996) Hodder & Stoughton (London); St Martin's Press (USA). After Arnold: Culture and Accessibility (1997). The British Library, Centre for the Book. World Enough and Time: The Life of Andrew Marvell (1999) Little, Brown (London); St Martin's Press (USA). A Short Book About Love (2001). Aldous Huxley: an English Intellectual (2002) Remembering Carmen (2003) Kafka (2004) The Narrators (2006)
Other Contributions Art for All? Their Policies and Our Culture (2000) In Memory: Sybille Bedford (2007, Eland) _____________ And on a lighter note... Nicholas Murray was a regular contributor in the 1980s and 1990s to the New Statesman Weekend Competition, the Independent Magazine competition and others. This dedicated pursuit of literary frivolity resulted in occasional brief contributions to titles such as Bindweed's Bestseller edited by David Godwin and the title below edited by Gavin Ewart: Other People's Clerihews (1983)
Recent Articles Most recently an article in Planet (No 174 Dec 2005/Jan 2006) on "Dealing with the Devil: the crisis in publishing," a controversial look at the current state of British publishing from the point of view of writer and reader. The same issue of Planet contains a review by the author of new poetry by Sheenagh Pugh, Christopher Meredith and Jeremy Hooker. To subscribe to Planet email planet.enquiries@planetmagazine.org.uk Earlier articles have included a review in The Independent (7 March 2003) of Chris Peachment's novel, The Green and The Gold; "The Shrinking of Language" in Planet (July 2003); a review of Kathi Diamant's Kafka's Last Love (Independent, 10 September); a review of John Banville's Prague Portraits (Independent, 13 September) and an article on the Booker Prize in Tribune, 19 September. An article on biography appeared in The Guardian, 13 December 2003 and an article on literary prizes in Planet, April 2004 No 164. An article on Kafka appeared in The Jewish Chronicle in July 2004. His review of Roberto Calasso's K was published in The Independent on 7 October 2005. A piece in the Independent on Sunday "Building a Library" feature covered books on Prague (31 July 2005). New Poems New poems have appeared in The New Welsh Review, Winter issue and in the spring 2004 issue of Metre. Festivals, Talks and Readings
TV and Radio Nicholas Murray took part on 1 January 2005 in a BBC Radio 4 programme, The First Trip, exploring the history of LSD, its effects on the mind, and its use within the worlds of music and art. He appeared on 20 May 2004 on BBC4's new series of Battle of the Books where Aldous Huxley's Brave New World was pitted against Philip K Dick's Valis. The winner was Brave New World. Recent radio interviews include One Word radio and BBC Scotland. His hour long interview about Kafka with Canadian Broadcasting Company's "Writers & Company" was broadcast in April 2005.
Web Interview Nicholas Murray was interviewed on 30 June 2004 and again in March 2008 by www.readysteadybook.com. Follow that link to read the interview. Literary Prizes Aldous Huxley: an English Intellectual was one of six titles shortlisted for the biennial Marsh Biography Prize in 2003. The winner, announced on 7th October 2003, was Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA by Brenda Maddox. Some Useful Links Nicholas Murray is a member of English PEN. For information about English PEN and its work see: www.englishpen.org Try a lively new link to some of the best contemporary poets at Poetry pf: www.poetrypf.co.uk
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