Circus of Dreams: Adventures in the 1980s Literary World

Description

Something extraordinary happened to the UK literary scene in the 1980s. A new wave of talented young novelists appeared in the space of five years, challenging the Establishment writers whose heyday had been the 1950s. While a score of ageing British authors still roamed the plains in the 1980s, a generation of young British writers took the literary novel into new realms of setting, subject matter and style. It began with two names - Martin Amis and Ian McEwan - and, in a very few years, became a flood. With these ground-breaking new ideas came the inevitable controversies, the climax of which came in the form of a death sentence from an Islamic leader who became, literally, the world's most lethal critic. The Golden Page will offer a personal record of this explosive turning point from John Walsh, a journalist who was in all the right places at all the right times.

John Walsh was born in Wimbledon to Irish parents in 1953, grew up in south London and was educated at Exeter College, Oxford and University College, Dublin. In 1978 he joined Victor Gollancz, but left to pursue a career in journalism. In the 1980s, he worked for The Director business magazine and wrote freelance reviews and literary features for several magazines, especially Time Out and Books & Bookmen. In 1988, he became literary editor of the Evening Standard. From 1989 to 1993 he was literary editor and feature writer at The Sunday Times. In 1993, he joined the Independent as editor of the Magazine, and spent the next 20 years as assistant editor in a variety of roles: writing features, reviewing restaurants and interviewing famous names - everyone from Vaclav Havel to Dame Ninette de Valois, from Vanessa Redgrave to Ozzy Osbourne. From 1997 to 1999, he was editorial director of the Cheltenham Festival of Literature. From 1998 to 2015, John could be heard on the popular Radio 4 book-quiz show, The Write Stuff, alongside Sebastian Faulks and James Walton. John is married, has three grown-up children, and lives in London and West Sussex.