Wain, John. (1925 - 1994).
W o r k
- author of novels, short stories, poems, radio plays, and literary criticism
- poetry: dry, cerebral, and witty poems associated with ‘The Movement’
- fiction: associated with Angry Young Men
Hurry on Down (1953):
- his first and most famous novel
- together with Kingsley Amis’s Lucky Jim and John Braine’s Room at the Top a leading example of the fiction produced by the ‘Angry Young Men’
- an account of the picaresque career of an unsettled uni graduate’s deliberate flight down the social scale into increasingly unpropitious occupations
Strike the father dead (1962):
- the lower-case letters in the title indicate the non-conventional manner
- follows a young jazzman's rebellion against his conventional father
A Winter in the Hills (1971):
- a rampageous comedy
- focuses on a linguist's researches in North Wales
Young shoulders (1982):
- a sensitive study of juvenile bereavement
- a young boy faces the death of loved ones
Where the river meets (1988) and Comedies (1990):
- Bildungsromanen: follow a young person's growth to maturity
- draws on his knowledge of Oxford where he studied and later lectured
Quote
"This book-amber-clear, cool and with a good head-deserves a thoughtful swig even from people who never drink."
John Wain
Basics
(Photo: Spisovatelé cz).
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Author
John Barrington Wain. (1925 - 1994). British. -
Work
Novelist. Playwright. Poet. Critic. Author of Hurry on Down (1953). -
Genres
Angry Young Men. The Movement.
Literature
Abrams, Meyer Howard, ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. New York: W. W. Norton, 1993.
Barnard, Robert. Stručné dějiny anglické literatury. Praha: Brána, 1997.
Baugh, Albert C. ed. A Literary History of England. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1967.
Coote, Stephen. The Penguin Short History of English Literature. London: Penguin, 1993.
Sampson, George. The Concise Cambridge History of English Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1946.
Sanders, Andrew. The Short Oxford History of English Literature. New York: Clarendon Press, 1994.