274- ] English Literature - Malcolm Bradbury

274- ] English Literature 

Malcolm Bradbury 

Sir Malcolm Stanley Bradbury, CBE (7 September 1932 – 27 November 2000) was an English author and academic.

Life

Bradbury was born in Sheffield, the son of a railwayman. His family moved to London in 1935, but returned to Sheffield in 1941 with his brother and mother. The family later moved to Nottingham and in 1943 Bradbury attended West Bridgford Grammar School, where he remained until 1950. He read English at University College, Leicester, gaining a first-class degree in 1953. He continued his studies at Queen Mary College, University of London, where he gained his MA in 1955.

Between 1955 and 1958, Bradbury moved between teaching posts with the University of Manchester and Indiana University in the United States. He returned to England in 1958 for a major heart operation; such was his heart condition that he was not expected to live beyond middle age. In 1959, while in hospital, he completed his first novel, Eating People is Wrong.

Bradbury married Elizabeth Salt and they had two sons. He took up his first teaching post as an adult-education tutor at the University of Hull. With his study on Evelyn Waugh in 1962 he began his career of writing and editing critical books. From 1961 to 1965 he taught at the University of Birmingham. He completed his PhD in American studies at the University of Manchester in 1962, moving to the University of East Anglia (his second novel, Stepping Westward, appeared in 1965), where he became Professor of American Studies in 1970 and launched the MA in Creative Writing course, attended by both Ian McEwan and Kazuo Ishiguro.

He published Possibilities: Essays on the State of the Novel in 1973, The History Man in 1975, Who Do You Think You Are? in 1976, Rates of Exchange in 1983 and Cuts: A Very Short Novel in 1987. He retired from academic life in 1995.

Bradbury became a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1991 for services to literature and was made a Knight Bachelor in the New Year Honours 2000, again for services to literature.

Bradbury died at Priscilla Bacon Lodge, Colman Hospital, Norwich, on 27 November 2000, attended by his wife and their two sons, Matthew and Dominic. He was buried on 4 December 2000 in the churchyard of St Mary's parish church, Tasburgh, near Norwich where the Bradburys owned a second home. Though he was not an orthodox religious believer, he respected the traditions and socio-cultural role of the Church of England and enjoyed visiting churches in the spirit of Philip Larkin's poem, "Church Going".

Works

Bradbury was a productive academic writer as well as a successful teacher; an expert on the modern novel, he published books on Evelyn Waugh, Saul Bellow and E. M. Forster, as well as editions of such modern classics as F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, and a number of surveys and handbooks of modern fiction, both British and American. However, he is best known to a wider public as a novelist. Although often compared with his contemporary David Lodge, a friend who has also written campus novels, Bradbury's books are consistently darker in mood and less playful both in style and language. In 1986, he wrote a short humorous book titled Why Come to Slaka? , a parody of travel books, dealing with Slaka, the fictional Eastern European country that is the setting for his novel Rates of Exchange, a 1983 novel that was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

Bradbury also wrote extensively for television, including scripting series such as Anything More Would Be Greedy, The Gravy Train (and its sequel, The Gravy Train Goes East, which explored life in Bradbury's fictional Slaka), and adapting novels such as Tom Sharpe's Blott on the Landscape and Porterhouse Blue, Alison Lurie's Imaginary Friends, Kingsley Amis's The Green Man, and the penultimate Inspector Morse episode The Wench is Dead. His last television script was for Dalziel and Pascoe series 5, produced by Andy Rowley. The episode "Foreign Bodies" was screened on BBC One on 15 July 2000.

His work was often humorous and ironic, mocking academe, British culture, and communism, usually with a picaresque tone.

Selected bibliography

Eating People is Wrong (1959) Writers and Critics: Evelyn Waugh (Oliver and Boyd, 1964)Stepping Westward (1965)Contemporary Criticism (1970)

The Social Context of Modern English Literature (1971)Possibilities (1973)

The History Man (1975)Who Do You Think You Are? (1976) — a collection of short stories All Dressed Up and Nowhere To Go (1982) The After Dinner Game (1982)Rates of Exchange (1983) – includes description of a performance of the imaginary opera Vedontakal Vrop, also described in Why Come to Slaka?The Modern American Novel (1983) Why Come to Slaka? (1986)

Cuts (1987)Mensonge (1987)My Strange Quest for Mensonge: Structuralism's Hidden Hero (1987) No Not Bloomsbury (1987)Unsent Letters (1988)The Modern World: Ten Great Writers (1988)Doctor Criminale (1992)The Modern British Novel (1993)Dangerous Pilgrimages: Trans-Atlantic Mythologies and the Novel (1995) To the Hermitage (2000)

Malcolm Bradbury

Malcolm Bradbury was a notable British novelist and literary critic, born on September 7, 1932, in Sheffield, England. His work is recognized for its significant contribution to the evolution of the English novel, navigating between traditional liberal realism and the emerging postmodern narrative styles. Bradbury's early novels, such as *Eating People Is Wrong* and *Stepping Westward*, display a satirical approach to social and academic issues, often reflecting his own experiences in university settings. His writing dives deeply into the moral complexities of contemporary life, challenging societal norms while exploring the tensions between different cultural and narrative frameworks.

As an author, Bradbury's fiction often critiques the disconnection of individual identity within increasingly complex political and social landscapes, as seen in his acclaimed work, *The History Man*. He adeptly blends innovative literary techniques with rich, stylized prose, pushing the boundaries of narrative form and character representation. Throughout his career, he maintained a commitment to exploring the viability of liberal-humanist themes in an era marked by postmodern skepticism. Bradbury's influence extended beyond novels to radio and television, with notable works including the satirical series *The Gravy Train*. He passed away in November 2000, leaving behind a legacy that continues to resonate in discussions of modern literature.

     

273- ] English Literature - Malcolm Bradbury

273- English Literature

Malcolm Bradbury

Sir Malcolm Bradbury: Facts & Related Content

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Facts

Also Known As    Malcolm Stanley Bradbury

Born  September 7, 1932 • Sheffield • England

Died  November 27, 2000 (aged 68) • Norwich • England

Notable Works     “Eating People Is Wrong”

Born  Malcolm Stanley Bradbury

7 September 1932

Sheffield, West Riding of Yorkshire, England

Died  27 November 2000 (aged 68)

Norwich, Norfolk, England

Alma mater University of Leicester (BA)

Queen Mary College, University of London (MA)

Victoria University of Manchester (PhD)

Years active          1955–2000

Spouse        Elizabeth Salt

Children     2

Website       www.malcolmbradbury.com

Sir Malcolm Bradbury (born September 7, 1932, Sheffield, England—died November 27, 2000, Norwich, Norfolk) was a British novelist and critic who is best known for The History Man (1975), a satirical look at academic life.

Bradbury studied at the University of Leicester (B.A., 1953), Queen Mary College (M.A., 1955) in London, and the University of Manchester, from which he received his doctorate in 1964. After traveling in the United States on a fellowship, he taught from 1959, first at the University of Hull, then at Birmingham. In 1965 he joined the faculty of the University of East Anglia, where he was a lecturer, reader, and then professor of American studies before retiring in 1995. In 1970 he helped found the university’s first creative writing course and became noted for encouraging new talent. Among the students he taught were Ian McEwan and Kazuo Ishiguro.

Bradbury received critical acclaim for his first novel, Eating People Is Wrong (1959), which takes place in the provincial world of academics, a common setting for his novels. Less successful was Stepping Westward (1965), which leans heavily on his experience on an American university campus. Beginning with The History Man, Bradbury’s works became more technically innovative as well as harsher in tone. His later novels include Rates of Exchange (1983), the satiric tale of a linguist traveling to a fictional eastern European country; Why Come to Slaka? (1986), a guidebook to that fictional country; Cuts (1987); and Doctor Criminale (1992). His last novel, To the Hermitage, appeared in 2000. Bradbury also wrote several books and essays of criticism and literary history, as well as a number of television plays. He was appointed CBE in 1991 and was knighted in 2000.

Malcolm Bradbury was a novelist, critic, television dramatist, and professor of American studies at the University of East Anglia, where he cofounded the first and most prestigious master’s program  in creative writing in the United Kingdom. Some of his novels include Eating People Is Wrong, The History Man, and To the Hermitage. He also wrote a number of critical works, humor and satire, and adapted Kingsley Amis’s The Green Man and Stella Gibbons’s Cold Comfort Farm for television. He was knighted in 2000 and died in November of the same year.