Jonathan Coe is an English novelist and writer. His work has an underlying preoccupation with political issues, although this serious engagement is often expressed comically in the form of satire. For example, What a Carve Up! (1994) reworks the plot of an old 1960s spoof horror film of the same name. It is set within the "carve up" of the UK's resources that was carried out by Margaret Thatcher's Conservative governments of the 1980s.
Alan Stewart Paton was a South African writer and anti-apartheid activist. His works include the novels Cry, the Beloved Country (1948), Too Late the Phalarope (1953), and the short story The Waste Land.
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1940) is the debut novel by the American author Carson McCullers; she was 23 at the time of publication. It is about a deaf man named John Singer and the people he encounters in a 1930s mill town in the US state of Georgia.
In contemporary literary studies, a theme is a central topic, subject, or message within a narrative. Themes can be divided into two categories: a work's thematic concept is what readers "think the work is about" and its thematic statement being "what the work says about the subject". Themes are often distinguished from premises.
Donald Charles Alfred Crowhurst was a British businessman and amateur sailor who disappeared while competing in the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race, a single-handed, round-the-world yacht race held in 1968–69. Soon after starting the race his boat, the Teignmouth Electron, began taking on water. Crowhurst secretly abandoned the race while reporting false positions in an attempt to appear to complete a circumnavigation without actually doing so. His ship's logbooks, found after his disappearance, suggest that the stress he was under and associated psychological deterioration may have led to his suicide.
David Wheeler, better known as David Thewlis, is an English actor and filmmaker. He is known as a character actor and has appeared in a wide variety of genres in both film and television. He has received the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor and nominations for two BAFTA Awards, Golden Globe Award, Primetime Emmy Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award.
Bryan Stanley William Johnson was an English experimental novelist, poet and literary critic. He also produced television programmes and made films.
Donald Edwin Westlake was an American writer with more than one hundred novels and non-fiction books to his credit. He specialized in crime fiction, especially comic capers, with an occasional foray into science fiction and other genres. Westlake created two professional criminal characters who each starred in a long-running series: the relentless, hardboiled Parker, and John Dortmunder, who featured in a more humorous series.
Went the Day Well? is a 1942 British war film adapted from a story by Graham Greene and directed by Alberto Cavalcanti. It was produced by Michael Balcon of Ealing Studios and served as unofficial propaganda for the war effort. The film shows a Southern English village taken over by German paratroopers, reflecting the greatest potential nightmare for the British public of the time, although the threat of German invasion had largely receded by that point. The film is notable for its unusually frank, for the time, depiction of ruthless violence.
The Rotters' Club is a 2001 novel by British author Jonathan Coe. It is set in Birmingham during the 1970s, and inspired by the author's experiences at King Edward's School, Birmingham. The title is taken from the album The Rotters' Club by experimental rock band Hatfield and the North. The book was followed by two sequels.
Rubery is the name of two adjacent settlements; one a village in the Bromsgrove District of Worcestershire, the other a suburb of Birmingham in the West Midlands, England. It is 4 miles (6.4 km) from Bromsgrove town centre, and 7 miles (11 km) from Birmingham city centre.
The Rain Before It Falls is a lyrical novel written by British author Jonathan Coe. It describes the history of three generations of women directly or indirectly affected by events in post-war London and rural Shropshire. The novel contrasts with Coe's previous works in that it is almost apolitical, examining both the welcome and the undesirable legacies parents leave their children.
Dreams of Speaking is a 2006 novel by Australian author Gail Jones. Similar to Jones’ first two novels, Sixty Lights and Five Bells, Dreams of Speaking also explores the concept of modernity and its effect on understanding ourselves. The novel moves through time and space, following a reflective writing style. Following a few months in the life of a young Australian writer, Alice Black, the novel weaves through time to explore Alice's journey as a young Australian academic conducting research on the concept of modernity. The novel begins in Perth, Western Australia, and follows Alice's travels to Paris and Tokyo. As she chases the true meaning of modernity, Alice unintentionally learns more about her world and herself. Jones’ includes disparate elements in her novel including letters between the characters and facts. Overall, the novel received mixed reviews from eminent critics.
One Day is a novel by David Nicholls, published in 2009. A couple spend the night together on 15 July 1988, knowing they must go their separate ways the next day. The novel then visits their lives on 15 July every year for the next 20 years. The novel attracted generally positive reviews and was named 2010 Galaxy Book of the Year. Nicholls adapted his book into a screenplay; the feature film, was released in August 2011, and a television series for Netflix, premiered on 8 February 2024.
Simon Rumley is a British screenwriter, director and author. Mostly associated with the horror genre, he was described by Screen International as "one of the great British cinematic outsiders, a gifted director with the know-how to puncture the conventions". He has won several awards and worked with, among others, Roger Lloyd-Pack, Greta Scacchi, Noah Taylor and Peter Facinelli.
The Mercy is a 2017 British biographical drama film, directed by James Marsh and written by Scott Z. Burns. It is based on the true story of the disastrous attempt by the amateur sailor Donald Crowhurst to complete the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race in 1968 and his subsequent attempts to cover up his failure. The film stars Colin Firth, Rachel Weisz, David Thewlis and Ken Stott. It is one of the last films scored by Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson.
The Very Private Life of Mister Sim is a 2015 French comedy-drama film directed by Michel Leclerc and starring Jean-Pierre Bacri. It is an adaptation of the 2010 novel The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim by English author Jonathan Coe. It was released in France on 16 December 2015.
Number 11 is a novel by British writer Jonathan Coe, published in 2015. The book explores the changing social, economical and cultural landscape of the United Kingdom in the early 21st century. It is connected to Coe's previous novel What a Carve Up!, through shared themes and references to characters and events from the latter.
Middle England is a 2018 novel by Jonathan Coe. It is the third novel in a trilogy, following The Rotters’ Club (2001) and The Closed Circle (2004). The novel explores the experiences of characters from those earlier novels against the backdrop of the major events taking place before, during and after the Brexit referendum.
Ag Apolloni is an Albanian writer, poet, playwright, scholar, and essay writer. He is a professor at the University of Prishtina, Kosovo. His literary works are widely acclaimed for their dramatic dimension, philosophical treatment, and critical attitude towards history, politics, and society.
