Ian Hamilton in Conversation With Dan Jacobson

by Dan Jacobson

Ian Hamilton (1938-2001) was truly a British man of letters in the finest sense of the term. As a young man he co-founded the influential magazine, The Review, and started a short while later the magazine Tomorrow. He was for a time the fiction and poetry editor of the Times Literary Supplement, and went on to found The New Review. But he was also a respected poet (Fifty Poems) essayist, and internationally known critic (Robert A Biography, The Oxford Companion to 20th Century Poetry). Dan Jacobson, a prolific novelist, poet, and critic, worked closely with Hamilton during the last few months of his life to finish this in-depth interview, filled with Hamilton's usual candor and good humor. Includes a lengthy bibliography of works by and about Hamilton, series of critical comments, two uncollected poems, and previously unpublished photographs.

140 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Dan Jacobson (born March 7, 1929 in Johannesburg, South Africa) is a novelist, short story writer, critic and essayist. He has lived in Great Britain for most of his adult life, and for many years held a professorship in the English Department at University College London. He has also spent periods as a visiting writer or a guest-professor at universities in the United States, Australia, and South Africa, and has given lectures and readings in many other countries.

His early novels, including The Trap, his first published novel, focus on South African themes. His later works have been various in kind: they include works of fantasy and fictional treatments of historical episodes, as well as memoirs, critical essays, and travel books. Among the awards and prizes he has received are the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize 1959 (A Long Way from London and Other Stories); Somerset Maugham Award 1964 (Time of Arrival and Other Essays); The Jewish Chronicle Award 1977 (The Confessions of Josef Baisz); the J. R. Ackerley Prize for Autobiography 1986 (Time and Time Again). In the year 2000 he edited and translated from the Dutch Een mond vol Glas by Henk van Woerden, an imaginative re-creation of the circumstances leading to the assassination of a South African president, Dr Hendrik Verwoerd, in the country's House of Assembly.

Dan Jacobson has received an Honorary D. Litt. from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and on retirement from his position at University College London was elected a Fellow of the college. Collections of his papers can be found at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, Austen, Texas; Oxford University, England; and, in South Africa, at Witwatersrand University Library, Johannesburg, the National English Literary Museum, Grahamstown, and the Africana Museum, Kimberley.