Alan Sillitoe

Alan Sillitoe (born 4 March, 1928) is an English writer, one of the "Angry Young Men" of the 1950s.

Biography

He served in the Royal Air Force ,where he was a wireless operator . After returning to England from Malaya he was discovered to have Tuberculosis and he spent sixteen months in an RAF hospital.

Pensioned off at 21 on 45 shillings at week, he lived in France and Spain for seven years in an attempt to recover.Whilst living in Majorca, with his lover, American poet Ruth Fainlight, in 1955, and in contact with the poet Robert Graves, Sillitoe commenced work on Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, which was published in 1958. Influenced in part by the stripped-down prose of Hemingway, the book conveys the attitudes and situation of a young factory worker faced with the inevitable end of his youthful philandering. As with Look Back in Anger and Room at the Top, the novel's real subject was the disillusionment of post-war Britain, and the lack of opportunities for the working class. It was adapted as a film by Karel Reisz in 1960, with Albert Finney as Arthur Seaton.

His story The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, which concerns the rebellion of a borstal boy with a talent for running, won the Hawthornden Prize in 1959. It was also adapted into a film, this time directed by Tony Richardson, and starring Tom Courtenay (1962).

In 1990, he was awarded an honorary degree from Nottingham Trent University. The city's older, prestigious Russell Group university, The University of Nottingham, also awarded Sillitoe an honorary DLitt degree in 1994, and in 2006 his best known play was staged at the University's Lakeside Arts theatre in an in-house production.

Sillitoe has written many more novels, and several volumes of poetry, listed below. His 1995 autobiography Life Without Armour was critically acclaimed on publication, and offers a view into his squalid childhood.

In 2007 Gadfly in Russia was published an account of his travels in Russia spanning 40 years. In 2008 London Books republished A Start in Life as part of their London Classics series and to mark the author's 80th birthday.

He married Ruth Fainlight, lives in London and has two children.

Novels

• Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
  London: Allen, 1958; New York: Knopf, 1959;
  new edition with an introduction by Sillitoe, commentary and notes by David Craig,
  In the Longman edition 1976 there is
  a sequence of Nottingham photographs, and stills from the film, Harlow
• The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner
  London: Allen, 1959;
  New York: Knopf, 1960.
• The General
  London: Allen, 1960;
  New York: Knopf, 1961.
• Key to the Door
  London: Allen, 1961;
  New York: Knopf, 1962;
  reprinted, with a new preface by Sillitoe, London: Allen, 1978.
• Road To Volgograd
  London: Allen, 1964;
  New York: Knopf, 1964.
• The Death of William Posters
  London: Allen, 1965;
  New York: Knopf, 1965.
• The City Adventures of Marmalade Jim
  London: Macmillan, 1967;
  Toronto: Macmillan, 1967;
  revised edition, illustrated by Shelagh McGee, London: Robson, 1977.
• A Tree on Fire
  London: Macmillan, 1967;
  Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1968.
• A Sillitoe Selection: Eight Short Stories, edited by Michael Morland
  London: Longmans Group, 1968.
• A Start in Life
  London: Allen, 1970;
  New York: Scribners, 1971.
• Travels in Nihilon
  London: Allen, 1971;
  New York: Scribners, 1972.
• Raw Material
  London: Allen, 1972;
  New York: Scribners, 1973;
  revised edition, London: Pan Books, 1974;
  further revised, London: Star Books, 1978;
  further revised, London: Allen, 1979.
• Men, Women and Children
  London: Allen, 1973;
  New York: Scribners, 1974.
• From Canto Two of The Rats
  Wittersham, Kent: Alan Sillitoe, 1973.
• Somme
  London: Steam Press, 1974.
  In Steam Press Portfolio, no. 2.
  50 copies.
• The Flame of Life
  London: Allen, 1974.
• Down to the Bone
  illustrated by Kathy Wyatt
  Exeter: Wheaton, 1976.
• Day-Dream Communiqué
  Knotting, Bedfordshire: Sceptre Press, 1977.
  150 copies.
• Big John and the Stars
  illustrated by Agnes Molnar
  London: Robson, 1977.
• The Widower's Son
  Allen, 1976;
  New York: Harper & Row, 1977.
• The Incredible Fencing Fleas
  illustrated by Mike Wilks.
  London: Robson, 1978.
• The Storyteller
  London: Allen, 1979; New York: Simon & Schuster, 1980.
• Marmalade Jim at the Farm
  illustrated by Shelagh McGee.
  London: Robson, 1980.
• More Lucifer
  Knotting, Bedfordshire: Martin Booth, 1980.
  125 copies.
• Her Victory
  London: Granada, 1982; New York: Watts, 1982.
• The Lost Flying Boat
  London: Granada, 1983; Boston: Little, Brown, 1983.
• The Saxon Shore Way: From Gravesend to Rye
  by Sillitoe and Fay Godwin.
  London: Hutchinson, 1983.
• Down from the Hill
  London: Granada, 1984.
• Marmalade Jim and the Fox
  illustrated by Tony Ross
  London: Robson, 1984.
• Life Goes On
  London: Granada, 1985.
• Out of the Whirlpool
  illustrated by Peter Farmer
  London: Hutchinson, 1987.
• The Open Door
  London: Grafton/Collins, 1989.
• Last Loves
  London: Grafton, 1990; Boston: Chivers, 1991.
• Leonard's War A Love Story
  London: HarperCollins, 1991.
• Shylock the Writer
  London: Turret Bookshop, 1991.
• The Mentality of the Picaresque Hero
  London: Turret Bookshop, 1993
  Turret Papers, no. 2
  500 copies
• Snowstop
  London: HarperCollins, 1993.
• Life Without Armour
  London: HarperCollins, 1995.
• The Broken Chariot
  London: Flamingo/HarperCollins, 1998.
• The German Numbers Woman
  London: Flamingo/HarperCollins, 1999.
• Birthday London: Flamingo/HarperCollins, 2001.
• A Man of His Time
  Harper Perennial, 2005
  ISBN 0007173288
  ISBN 9780007173280

Translations

• Chopin’s Winter in Majorca 1838-1839
  by Luis Ripall, translated by Sillitoe.
  Palma de Majorca:
  Mossen Alcover, 1955.
• Chopin’s Pianos: The Pleyel in Majorca,
  by Luis Ripall,
  translated by Sillitoe.
  Palma de Majorca: Mossen Alcover, 1958.
• All Citizens Are Soldiers (Fuente Ovejuna)
  a Play in Two Acts, by Lope de Vega
  translated by Sillitoe and Ruth Fainlight
  London: Macmillan, 1969;
  Chester Springs, PA: Dufour, 1969.
• Poems for Shakespeare, volume 7
  edited and translated by Sillitoe and Ruth Fainlight
  London: Bear Gardens Museum & Arts Centre, 1979.

Poetry

• Without Beer or Bread.
  Dulwich Village: Outposts, 1957.
• The Rats and Other Poems
  London: Allen, 1960.
• Falling Out of Love and Other Poems
  London; Allen, 1964;
  Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1964.
• Shaman: And Other Poems"
  Turret, 1968
  Limited ed. of 500 copies
  100 copies signed and numbered.
• Love in the Environs of Voronezh and Other Poems
  London: Macmillan, 1968;
  Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1969.
• Poems
  by Sillitoe, Ruth Fainlight and Ted Hughes
  London: Rainbow Press, 1971.
  300 copies
• Barbarians and Other Poems
  London: Turret Books, 1973.
  500 copies
• Storm: New Poems
  London: Allen, 1974.
• From Snow on the North Side of Lucifer
  Knotting, Bedfordshire: Sceptre Press, 1979.
  150 Copies
• Snow on the North Side of Lucifer: Poems
  London: Allen, 1979
• Poems for Shakespeare 7
  Bear Gardens Museum and Arts Centre, 1979
  Limited to 500 copies all copies are numbered
• Sun Before Departure: Poems, 1974-1982
  London: Granada, 1984
• Tides and Stone Walls:
  Poems, with photographs by Victor Bowley
  London: Grafton, 1986.
• Three Poems
  Child Okefurd, Dorset: Words Press, 1988.
  200 copies.
• Collected Poems
  London: HarperCollins, 1993.

Essays

• Mountains and Caverns: Selected Essays
  London: Allen, 1975
• Words Broadsheet Nineteen
  by Sillitoe and Ruth Fainlight.
  Bramley, Surrey: Words Press, 1975.
  Broadside.
• “The Interview.”
  London: The 35s
  (Women’s Campaign for Soviet Jewry), 1976.
• Israel: Poems on a Hebrew Theme, with drawings by Ralph Steadman
  London: Steam Press, 1981.
  98 copies.
• Alan Sillitoe’s Nottinghamshire, with photographs by David Sillitoe. London: Grafton, 1987.

Plays

• Three Plays
  London: Allen, 1978
  Contains
  The Slot-Machine
  The Interview,
  Pit Strike
  

Compilations

• Every Day of the Week:
  An Alan Sillitoe Reader, with an introduction by John Sawkins
  London: Allen, 1987.
• Collected Stories
  London: Flamingo, 1995.

Collections of Stories

• The Ragman’s Daughter and Other Stories
  London: Allen, 1963;
  New York: Knopf, 1964.
• Guzman, Go Home, and Other Stories
  London: Macmillan, 1968;
  Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1969;
  reprinted, with a new preface by Sillitoe, London; Allen, 1979.
• Men, Women and Children
  London: Allen, 1973;
  New York: Scribners, 1974.
• The Second Chance and Other Stories
  London: Cape, 1981;
  New York: Simon & Schuster, 1981.
• The Far Side of the Street: Fifteen Short Stories
  London: Allen, 1988.
• Alligator Playground: A Collection of Short Stories
  Flamingo, 1997
  ISBN 0006550738

Autobiography

• Life Without Armour
  (HarperCollins, 1995)
  ISBN 0002555700
  ISBN 9780002555708
• Contents
• The General Other Poems
• Kedah, D. H. Lawrence, Nottingham
• Men Women and Children All Citizens are Soldiers with Ruth
• Mike Edmonds, Majorca, Malaga
• Out of the Whirlpool
• Karel Reisz, Rosica, Albert Finney

Further reading

• Alan Sillitoe: A Bibliography

By David E. Gerard
H.W. Wilson, 1986
Mansell, 1988
ISBN 0887361048 Mansell
ISBN 0720118298 H.W. Wilson

• Contents of "Alan Sillitoe: A Bibliography":
• Alan Sillitoe, Shueisha, Ruth Fainlight
• Contributions to books and periodicals 55
• Jewish Chronicle, F.E.S. Finn, short story
• Materials of critical and biographical interest92
• David Storey, Nottingham Evening Post, Notts County

ISBN 0805714960

• Commitment As Art by Ronald Dee Vaverka
  (1978 - Dissertation--Uppsala Univ);
• Alan Sillitoe: A Critical Assessment by S.S. Atherton (1979);
• The British Working-Class Novel in the Twentieth Century

Contributor Jeremy Hawthorn
(E. Arnold, 1984)

• Alan Sillitoe: A Bibliography by David Gerard
  (Greenwood Pub Group, 1988)
  ISBN 0713164158
  ISBN 9780713164152
• Working-class Fiction in Theory and Practice
  Peter Hitchcock
  (Peter Hitchcock)
  ISBN 0835719766
  ISBN 9780313276729
• Understanding Alan Sillitoe
  Gillian Mary Hanson
  (South Carolina Press, 1999)
  ISBN 157003219X
• The Long Apprenticeship: Alienation in the Early Work of Alan Sillitoe
  John Sawkins
  (Peter Lang, 2001)
  ISBN 3906764508
• The life of a long-distance writer
  The biography of Alan Sillitoe
  Richard Bradford
  ISBN 978 0 7206 13179
  (Times Online, UK

External links

• The start of Alan Sillitoe : How Sillitoe stood apart from the tradition of other Northern novelists going soft and successful in the South ; Times online October 1, 2008
• Contemporary Writers: Alan Sillitoe
• Guardian article, 2004
• Alan Sillitoe describes his life as a smoker prior to the England smoking ban
• The White Horse Public House made famous in 'Saturday Night & Sunday Morning'
• London Books