William Boyd
author profile
born
March 07, 1952
gender
male
place of birth
Accra, Ghana
website
genre
Literature & Fiction
about this author
Of Scottish descent, Boyd was born in Accra, Ghana on 7th March, 1952 and spent much of his early life there and in Nigeria where his mother was a teacher and his father, a doctor. Boyd was in Nigeria during the Biafran War, the brutal secessionist conflict which ran from 1967 to 1970 and it had a profound effect on him.
At the age of nine years he attended Gordonstoun school, in Moray, Scotland and then Nice University (Diploma of French Studies) and Glasgow University (MA Hons in English and Philosophy), where he edited the Glasgow University Guardian. He then moved to Jesus College, Oxford in 1975 and completed a PhD thesis on Shelley. For a brief period he worked at the New Statesman magazine as a TV critic, then he returned ...more
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avg rating: 3.76
| 2,773 ratings
| 429 reviews
| 72 distinct works
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Restless by William Boyd avg rating 3.70 — 794 ratings — published 2007 23 editions |
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Any Human Heart by William Boyd avg rating 4.07 — 469 ratings — published 2002 13 editions |
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Brazzaville Beach by William Boyd avg rating 3.78 — 274 ratings — published 1990 15 editions |
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A Good Man in Africa: A Novel by William Boyd avg rating 3.77 — 177 ratings — published 1981 18 editions |
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The Blue Afternoon by William Boyd avg rating 3.74 — 120 ratings — published 1993 14 editions |
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Armadillo by William Boyd avg rating 3.50 — 121 ratings — published 1998 19 editions |
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The New Confessions by William Boyd avg rating 4.11 — 98 ratings — published 1988 10 editions |
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An Ice-Cream War by William Boyd avg rating 3.65 — 109 ratings — published 1986 13 editions |
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Stars and Bars by William Boyd avg rating 3.34 — 76 ratings — published 1984 7 editions |
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Fascination: Stories by William Boyd avg rating 3.35 — 34 ratings — published 2004 4 editions |
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"'Maybe we should go by tube', he said.
'A taxi'll come', she said. 'I'm in no hurry'.
She remembered something a woman in Paris had told her once. A woman in her forties, much married, elegant, a little world-weary. There is nothing easier in this world, this woman had claimed, than getting a man to kiss you. Oh really? Eva had said, so how do you do that? Just stand close to a man, the woman has said, very close, as close as you can without touching - he will kiss you in one minute or two. It's inevitable. For them it's like an instinct - they can't resist. Infaillible.
So Eva stood close to Romer in the doorway of the shop on Frith Street as he shooted and waved at the passing cars moving down the dark street, hoping one of them might be a taxi.
'We're out of luck', he said, turning, to find Eva standing very close to him, her face lifted.
'I'm in no hurry', she said.
He reached for her and kissed her."
— William Boyd (Restless)
'A taxi'll come', she said. 'I'm in no hurry'.
She remembered something a woman in Paris had told her once. A woman in her forties, much married, elegant, a little world-weary. There is nothing easier in this world, this woman had claimed, than getting a man to kiss you. Oh really? Eva had said, so how do you do that? Just stand close to a man, the woman has said, very close, as close as you can without touching - he will kiss you in one minute or two. It's inevitable. For them it's like an instinct - they can't resist. Infaillible.
So Eva stood close to Romer in the doorway of the shop on Frith Street as he shooted and waved at the passing cars moving down the dark street, hoping one of them might be a taxi.
'We're out of luck', he said, turning, to find Eva standing very close to him, her face lifted.
'I'm in no hurry', she said.
He reached for her and kissed her."
— William Boyd (Restless)
"I stood there in the kitchen, watching her staring across the meadow still searching for her nemesis and I thought, suddenly, that this is all our lives - this is the one fact that applies to us all, that makes us what we are, our common mortality, our common humanity. One day someone is going to come and take us away: you don't need to have been a spy, I thought, to feel like this."
— William Boyd (Restless)
— William Boyd (Restless)
"I have teken refuge in the doctrine that advises one not to seek tranquility in certainty but in permanently suspended judgement.
From Brazzaville Beach"
— William Boyd
From Brazzaville Beach"
— William Boyd
