Malcolm Bradbury is dead

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON, NOV. 28. Sir Malcolm Bradbury, the distinguished British novelist, critic and co-founder of Britain's pioneering creative writing course died on Monday after a brief illness in a hospice near his home in Norwich. He was 68.

He is survived by his wife and two sons.

Sir Malcolm had been ill with a form of pneumonia which suddenly worsened. Ironically, his last novel ``To the Hermitage'' which was published a few months ago, explores the fate of a writer's work after his death.

Sir Malcolm is best known for lampooning the social pretensions of the sixties, especially as practised by the academia which, as a part of it, he knew inside out. ``Eating People is Wrong'' and ``The History Man'' offered a rare insight into the world of academic abracadabra and ``The History Man'' in particular remains the most scathing exploration of the life on the campus. Though one full decade stood between the two books, they read like companions insofar as both were a withering comment on the make-believe world of the bourgeoisie of the time.

Sir Malcolm was a satirist par excellence and his ``radical, sceptical spirit'', as The Times put it, rubbed off on his students on the famous creative writing course at the University of East Anglia which he founded with Angus Wilson in 1970. Some of Britain's most celebrated writers today such as Kazuo Ishiguro and Ian McEwan had their baptism on that course which, critics recalled today, became synonymous with modern British writing. ``When he began the course - with a single pupil, a young Ian McEwan - there was no such thing as a creative writing course in Britain. Indeed, the idea was often greeted with scorn. Now, there are dozens nurturing many young writers: all thanks in the end to Malcolm'', said Mr. Erica Wagner, writer and Literary Editor of The Times who attended Sir Malcolm's course in a personal tribute.

The Poet Laureate Andrew Motion who ran the course after Sir Malcolm retired in 1995, called the news of his death ``extremely desolating'' while novelist David Lodge praised him for the ``remarkable breadth of his writing.'' Ishiguro, in a tribute in The Guardian, recalled him as a ``liberating'' force as a teacher. ``You could turn up with almost any kind of writing and he would insist the group look at it seriously'', Ishiguro said.

Sir Malcolm was generous to a fault and never used his power as a critic to put someone down - not even those who had been unkind to him. Apparently, he was upset with Martin Amis's scathing review of his book ``Rates of Exchange'' but 10 years later when he got to review Amis's own novel ``Information'' - generally panned by critics - Sir Malcolm gave him a ``glowing review in The Times''.

Besides his fiction, Sir Malcolm would be remembered for his critical works such as ``The Novel Today'', ``The Social Context of Modern English Literature'' and ``The Modern American Novel'' among others. The ``History Man'' will live on through his works.

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Section  : International
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