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In Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet in its Egyptian Contexts, Dr. Diboll argues that Durrell's tetralogy is the most important English novel of the mid-nineteen-fifties, an historically significant period which has been much overlooked by literary scholars. It convincingly demonstrates the importance of the Alexandria Quartet as a "Janus text" which looks back to the lost world of the British Empire, yet anticipates many important aspects of later post-colonial and postmodern writing. Thus, the book insists, the Alexandria Quartet should be recognised as a colossal work of literature, standing astride the nexus separating the colonial and post-colonial moments, a paradigmatic text for scholars of Empire studies, late Modernism, literary postmodernity, orientalism and post-colonial literature. This wide-ranging work explores the influence of all of the many strata of Egyptian history on the Quartet and in doing so offers a sustained meditation of the interaction of time, place and exile on the literary imagination.Its focus on exile is especially poignant, taking in the cultural and psychological alienation of this "third generation Anglo-Irish-Indian", an "English pied-noir" from a most unheimlich English "homeland", the effects of Durell's voluntary exile in Greece during the inter-war years on his literary sensibility, and psychological and existential impact of Durrell's flight from the Nazi occupation of Greece and his four years as a refugee in war-time Alexandria, which he experienced as an "Oriental" Other starkly juxtaposed to his "free Hellenic world". This work does not neglect to examine Egyptian responses to the Alexandria Quartet, and it examines with a forensic thoroughness the way in which the "public life realities" of emergent Egyptian nationalism are subtly embedded in what for too long has been considered to be a work of fantasy. Seeking to go beyond the Saidian Orientalist paradigm, the book proposes that aspects of Bhabhaian hybridity theory, combined with a rigourous socio-historical analysis, offer the most effective theoretical insights into Durrell's seething Alexandrian cosmopolis. ... Read more

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In this second volume of his study of novelist Lawrence Durrell, Richard Pine examines Durrell's contribution to the development of the modern novel. He concentrates in particular on the evidence of Durrell's private notebooks and diaries in which his propensity for Eastern philosophy underpins his lifelong determination to provide a climax to a lifetime's writing with the creation, in "The Avignon Quintet", of what he calls "a Tibetan novel". ... Read more

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In the course of his years with the British Council, Maurice Cardiff travelled extensively and made friends of numerous nationalities. This is a collection of his personal memories of some of the people he got to know well. The collection includes Patrick Leigh-Fermor, distinguished travel writer with whom, after an eventful tour of northern Greece, he established a lasting friendship; Lawrence Durrell, first encountered in Athens, then in Cyprus where he had settled to start on the "Alexandrian Quartet", but was beset by personal problems that Maurice Cardiff helped him solve; Peggy Gugenheim, known for her collection of art, eccentric lifestyle and numerous lovers; and Freya Stark, exigent guest who cajoled Cardiff into driving her on interminable expeditions. Others included in the memoirs may be less well-known, but they are no less remarkable. ... Read more

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In 1935, Lawrence Durrell, a young Englishman living on Corfu, wrote enthusiastically to a middle-aged Brooklynite - Henry Miller - of his just published novel "Tropic of Cancer". Miller felt that he had found his ideal reader and responded, thus beginning a correspondence that lasted 45 years. ... Read more

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Two great writers in a lifelong epistolary friendship...
It is well-known that Lawrence Durrell and Henry Miller became friends after Durrell wrote a letter to Miller in Paris, praising the latter's 'Tropic of Cancer' when it was still banned both in Britain and the UnitedStates.What devolved from this sincere letter of praise is shown in thisvolume, a successor to the 'Durrell-Miller Letters' of thirty years ago. Of necessity more complete than its predecessor, the 'Durrell-MillerLetters: 1935-80' tells a story in its own right of the lives of two greatfriends, who met over a book and stayed the course for the next forty-fiveyears.

In these pages we find Durrell, always in exile no matter where hehas chosen to settle, be it England, Corfu, Cyprus, Argentinia, Yugoslavia,Egypt or France, writing to Miller, an American first abroad in Paris thenreturned to the United States, to New York and eventually to Big Sur, wherehe was to live for most of the rest of his life. Over the course of theletters a remarkable friendship blossomed, one which withstood the tests ofdistance and age with remarkable fortitude, and which only death eventuallyended.The letters are often exuberant, coarse, and amusing; theychronicle the developing literary and personal fortunes of two remarkablemen: one the author of some of the most controversial books of thetwentieth century, the other author of the much-praised Alexandria Quartet,as well as countless volumes of poetry, drama, and travelwriting.

Introduced and annotated by Ian MacNiven, Durrell's officialbiographer, and completed two years before Durrell's death in 1990, thisvolume is a marvellous addition to the library of any reader of eitherDurrell or Miller, or anyone who appreciates seeing at first hand the innerworkings of rare and unique minds. ... Read more