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Synopsis
This biography of Raymond Williams reveals the intensely private and conflicted man behind such hugely influential critical works as Culture and Society (1958), The Long Revolution (1961), Keywords (1976) and Marxism and Literature (1977). With unlimited access to never-before-seen papers, Dai Smith shows how the making of the work for which Williams is famous was inextricably bound up with the relentless writing and rewriting of his fiction, both published and unpublished, which includes the Border Country trilogy.Dai Smith read History and Literature at Balliol College, Oxford; Columbia University, New York; and University of Wales, Swansea.From 1969 to 1993 he taught History at the universities of Lancaster, Swansea and Cardiff. In 1993 he joined the BBC as Editor of Radio Wales and from 1994 to 2000 was Head of Broadcast (English Language) at BBC Wales. Professor Smith is a renowned historian and prolific writer on the arts and cultural issues he is well known as a broadcaster on radio and television.In March 2005 Professor Smith accepted an appointment as Research Chair in the Cultural History of Wales at Swansea University.
"This is a worthwhile book and a very good one, ten thousand times more valuable than the regular run of sponsored dispatches on turbulence in the literary stock market..." David Hare The Guardian.
David Hare
...Dai Smith's new biography concentrates exclusively on the first 40 years of his subject's life. It's special intention is to prove...that Williams never even thought of himself as a critic, least of all one mired in the the occupational spite and nastiness of the English faculty at Cambridge...
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