Author Description

Christopher Isherwood was a phenomenon: recognised as a major writer of the thirties, yet later ignored, and with a fascinating life outside of literature. In this absorbing biography, Jonathan Fryer chronicles the many facets of Isherwood’s varied, colourful life: his travel and times in London, Berlin, the Far East, South America and the United States; his friendships with the great names of the artistic world, W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender, Aldous Huxley, E. M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, Thomas Mann, Igor Stravinsky, Greta Garbo and many others. He tells also of Isherwood’s pacifist work with the Quakers during the Second World War; his connection with the Vedanta movement and life in a monastic community; his film work in Hollywood; and his belief in the necessity to talk freely about his homosexuality. Isherwood is the central character in several of his own books but he declares himself detached from this dummy figure who represents only part of his nature and who changes from book to book. Much of the material used here has been gathered from interviews with Isherwood and his friends, from letters, manuscripts and published works. In addition, his novels, plays, biographies and religious books are all examined in detail. It is essential reading for anyone interested in twentieth-century literature and social history. Jonathan Fryer (1950–2021) was educated at Manchester Grammar School and St Edmund Hall, Oxford, where he took his degree in Chinese and Japanese. He worked as a Reuters correspondent in London and Brussels, then resigned to devote himself to writing and freelance journalism.