Kyril Bonfiglioli

Kyril Emanuel George Bonfiglioli (born May 29, 1928 in Eastbourne , England , † March 3, 1985 in Jersey ) was an English art dealer and writer .

biography

Kyril Bonfiglioli's life was very similar to that of his character Charlie Mortdecai , protagonist of the crime novels in his Mortdecai trilogy. He was, like his hero, a cunning art dealer who lived on a grand scale (his masterpiece was reportedly buying a Tintoretto at auction for £ 40).

It was only after his career that Bon , as he called himself, got into writing. Those years were marked by decay, alcohol addiction, debt and depression.

Bonfiglioli was married three times: his first wife died shortly after the birth of the second child, his second marriage to Margaret Bonfiglioli, who published an anthology ( The Mortdecai ABC ) about him after his death , was divorced in 1969. When Don't Point That Thing At Me came out in 1973 , Bonfiglioli's third marriage was also over.

Content and characters of the novels

With the exception of All the Tea in China , the antihero Charlie Mortdecai is the narrator and protagonist of all of Bonfiglioli's novels. Charlie is a dandy, a cunning and snobbish art dealer with a highly immoral character. His assistant Jock , a crook, does the nastier tasks that arise when you want to be successful in the arts and crafts while staying alive. In any case, Charlie, who is full of prejudice and absurd theories, is entertaining.

Bonfiglioli's books are atypical detective novels for several reasons. For one thing, the total lack of morality in the main characters is untypical for the genre, and the plot is extremely confused and intricate. Most of all, Bonfiglioli's books are full of wit.

Even Karli van Cleef , the protagonist in the travel novel All the Tea in China , which also deals with works of art and also been active in the opium trade in China, is Charlie Mortdecai in character very similar.

It is modeled after the real person George Duveen , a famous Dutch art dealer.

Works

• The Mortdecai trilogy:
  • Don't Point That Thing At Me (1973, Take That Thing Away )
  • Something Nasty In The Woodshed (1976, The Ladies and the Monster )
  • After You With The Pistol (1979)
• All the Tea in China (1978)
• The Great Mortdecai Mustache Mystery (completed posthumously by Craig Brown in 1996, Charlie Mortdecai in: The Great Mustache Mystery )

filming

The movie Mortdecai, the part-time crook with Johnny Depp in the lead role is based on the Mortdecai novels.

Web links

• Literature by and about Kyril Bonfiglioli in the catalog of the German National Library