Open BookNeglected Classics: The Advocates
William Boyd
William Boyd's choice is The Polyglots by William Gerhardie.
William Boyd on his choice
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William Boyd's ten novels include A Good Man in Africa, Any Human Heart, and most recently Ordinary Thunderstorms. Named in 1983 as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists, he also has a parallel career as a screenwriter.
Listen to an extract from The Polyglots by William Gerhardie
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The novelist William Gerhardie (1895-1977) enjoyed huge success in the 1920s before falling out of favour. His 1925 comic novel The Polyglots follows an eccentric Belgian family and their life in the Far East - in this passage the English narrator Captain Diabologh dines with his fiancée. Reader: Bruce Alexander.
Neglected Classics
Advocates
- Beryl Bainbridge
- William Boyd
- Susan Hill
- Howard Jacobson
- Hari Kunzru
- Val McDermid
- Michael Morpurgo
- Ruth Rendell
- Colm Toibin
- Joanna Trollope
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