Piers Paul Read

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Piers Paul Read (born March 7, 1941 in Beaconsfield , Buckinghamshire , United Kingdom ) is a British writer .

Life

Read is the son of the poet Herbert Read and comes from a devout Catholic English family. He studied at Cambridge University , where he graduated with an MA (Master of Arts) in 1962 . From 1963 to 1964 he spent a year in West Berlin , which inspired him to write his second novel The Junkers (1968) and which decisively shaped his sympathies for Germany . 1967-68 he lived in New York - a time that he worked up in The Professor's Daughter (1971). Read subsequently held several honorary positions in art institutes. 1992-97 he was chairman of the Catholic Writers' Guild , an association of British Catholic writers. Read is married and has four children. He lives in London .

Works

Read's best-known work is the factual novel Survival! (orig .: Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors ) about Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 from 1974, which was successfully filmed in 1993 . In addition to several non-fiction books on various topics, he also wrote for television.

Most of his work, however, consists of novels. His first book is the formally more experimental Game in Heaven with Tussy Marx (1966), which was largely shaped by his communist sympathies during his student days. (The Tussy Marx in the title was a daughter of Karl Marx who committed suicide.) Subsequently, he turned to a more realistic narrative style. His first major artistic success he was able to celebrate with Monk Dawson (1969), for which he received both the Hawthornden Prize and a Somerset Maugham Award in 1970 .

Topics and content

Read's extensive literary work is largely shaped by his Catholic faith. Guilt, atonement, and conversion are its main themes. Formally, his novels are traditionally told, stories told linearly. He also often uses elements of commercial suspense literature and thriller , e.g. Sometimes in a sensational style (murders, rapes, espionage, etc.). The (mostly male) hero is rarely a sympathetic figure of identification, but rather someone whose path to conversion the reader follows.

Read also has an unusually positive interest in British literature in Germany ( The Junkers , The Knights of the Cross ) and in Eastern Europe, especially Poland and Russia ( Polonaise , A Season in the West , A Patriot in Berlin , Alice in Exile ), on the day.

List of works

Fiction

  • Game in Heaven with Tussy Marx (1966)
  • The Junkers (1968)
  • Monk Dawson (1969)
  • The Professor's Daughter (1971)
  • The Upstart (1973)
  • Polonaise (1976)
  • A Married Man (1979)
  • The Villa Golitsyn (1981)
  • The Free Frenchman (1986)
  • A Season in the West (1988)
  • On the Third Day (1990)
  • A Patriot in Berlin (1995)
  • Knights of the Cross (1997)
  • Alice in Exile (2001)

Non-fiction

  • Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors (1974) (German initially: Survived. The Andes Passion . Later Survival! )
  • The Train Robbers (1978) (dt. The train robbers )
  • Quo Vadis? The Subversion of the Catholic Church (1991)
  • Ablaze: The Story of Chernobyl (1993)
  • The Templars : The Dramatic History of the Knights Templar, the Most Powerful Military Order of the Crusades (1999)
  • Alec Guinness . The Authorized Biography (2003)
  • Hell and other Destinations ( essays ) (2006)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Read, Piers Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British writer
DATE OF BIRTH March 7, 1941
PLACE OF BIRTH Beaconsfield , Buckinghamshire , United Kingdom