Lindsay Clarke (born 1939, Halifax, West Riding of Yorkshire) is a British novelist. He was educated at Heath Grammar School in Halifax and at King's College, Cambridge.[1] The landscape of hills, moors and crags around Halifax informed the growth of his imagination, while King's refined his sensibility and sharpened his intellect.
His debut novel, Sunday Whiteman, was shortlisted for the David Higham First Novel Award,[2] and his second novel The Chymical Wedding, partly inspired by the life of Mary Anne Atwood,[3] won the Whitbread Prize in 1989.[4] Clarke's most recent novel is The Water Theatre (published in September 2010 by Alma Books). In her review of the novel in The Times Antonia Senior said "There is nothing small about this book. It is huge in scope, in energy, in heart...It is difficult to remember a recent book that is at once so beautiful and yet so thought provoking."[5] The Water Theatre was selected as a winner of the inaugural Fiction Uncovered competition[6] in 2011 and was included among The Times's Books of the Year. In 2012 The Water Theatre was chosen as the inaugural e-book publication of The New York Review of Books under their NYRB Lit imprint.[7]
Before becoming a writer, Lindsay's career in education took him to Akim-Oda, Ghana, where he worked as Senior Master of a co-educational boarding school. He has also worked in the United States.[8] He lectures in creative writing at Cardiff University,[9] is a Creative Consultant to The Pushkin Trust in Northern Ireland, and teaches writing workshops in Frome, London and at the Arvon Foundation. He has had four radio plays broadcast on BBC Radio 4, and a number of his articles and reviews have been published in Resurgence[10] and The London Magazine. Lindsay has one daughter from his first marriage. In 2014 he was awarded a Civil List Pension "in recognition of services to literature."[11]
Clarke passionately believes in the power of the creative imagination[12] and writes about imagination, consciousness and mythology in his blog.
Publications
editTroy Quartet
edit- A Prince of Troy (2019) ISBN 0-00-837104-0
- The War at Troy (2004), ISBN 0-00-715026-1
- The Spoils of Troy (2019) ISBN 0-00-837108-3
- The Return from Troy (2005), ISBN 0-00-715027-X
Novels
edit- Sunday Whiteman (1987)ISBN 0-224-02488-4
- The Chymical Wedding (1989)ISBN 0-224-02537-6
- Alice's Masque (1994)ISBN 0-224-03287-9
- Parzival and the Stone from Heaven (2001), ISBN 0-00-710813-3
- The Water Theatre (2010)
Poetry
edit- Stoker (2006), Phoenix Poetry Pamphlet
- A Dance with Hermes (2016), ISBN 978-1-906900-43-4
Non-fiction
edit- Imagining Otherwise (2004), GreenSpirit Pamphlet No. 6 ISBN 0-9532551-7-4
- Green Man Dreaming: Reflections on Imagination, Myth, and Memory (2018), ISBN 978-1-906900-56-4
Anthologies edited
edit- Essential Celtic Mythology (1997), ISBN 1-85538-477-9. Reprinted as Lindsay Clarke's Traditional Celtic Stories (1999), ISBN 0-7225-3983-5.
- The Gist: A Celebration of the Imagination (2012), ISBN 978-0-9568735-2-1 (Editor)[13]
References
edit- ^ "Lindsay Clarke". Lindsay Clarke. Retrieved 21 June 2020.
- ^ "Sunday Whiteman". Lindsay Clarke. Retrieved 21 June 2020.
- ^ Rowland, Susan (1999), Rowland, Susan (ed.), "A Jungian Reader Theory: Alchemy and The Chymical Wedding by Lindsay Clarke", C. G. Jung and Literary Theory: The Challenge from Fiction, London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, pp. 60–83, doi:10.1057/9780230597648_4, ISBN 978-0-230-59764-8
- ^ Liliana Sikorska, "Mapping the Green Man's Territory in Lindsay Clarke's The Chymical Wedding," in: The Year's Work in Medievalism 15 (2002), ed. Jesse Swan and Richard Utz.
- ^ Senior, Antonia. "The Water Theatre by Lindsay Clarke". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 21 June 2020.
- ^ "The Water Theatre by Lindsay Clarke longlisted for the 2012 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award | Fiction Uncovered". Retrieved 21 June 2020.
- ^ "New York Review Books Does e Only with NYRB Lit". www.publishersweekly.com. Retrieved 21 June 2020.
- ^ "Lindsay Clarke". Lindsay Clarke. Retrieved 21 June 2020.
- ^ "Lindsay Clarke | United Agents". www.unitedagents.co.uk. Retrieved 21 June 2020.
- ^ "Resurgence • Author Lindsay Clarke". www.resurgence.org. Retrieved 21 June 2020.
- ^ "The Mythic Imagination: From Ancient Troy to the Present Day". Interalia Magazine. 17 May 2019. Retrieved 21 June 2020.
- ^ Lindsay (23 November 2018). "Imagination Alive & Kicking". Lindsay Clarke. Retrieved 21 June 2020.
- ^ "Distant socialising". Morning Star. 25 May 2020. Retrieved 1 September 2020.
- Susan Rowland, "Writing About War: Jung, Much Ado About Nothing and the Troy Novels of Lindsay Clarke" in Journal of Jungian Scholarly Studies 3.1, 2007
- Mark F Lund, "Lindsay Clarke and A.S.Byatt: The Novel on the Threshold of Romance" in Deus Loci: The Lawrence Durrell Journal NS2, Vol.1, 1993