Bestselling novelist Alexander McCall Smith’s charming account of how the poet W.H. Auden has helped guide his life — and how he might guide yours, too. Now available in paperback.
In this book McCall Smith has written a charming personal account about what W.H. Auden has done for him.
Part self-portrait, part literary appreciation, the book tells how McCall Smith first came across the poet’s work in the 1070s while teaching law in Belfast. At the time, this was a violently divided city and Auden’s ‘September 1, 1939’, a poem about the outbreak of World War II, resonated strongly. McCall Smith goes on to reveal how his life has related to and been inspired by other Auden poems ever since.
An enchanting story about how art can help us live, this book will appeal to McCall Smith’s fans and anyone curious about Auden.
Read more in this article by Alexander McCall Smith, written when the book was first published in hardback.
