Bamboo: Essays and Criticism

About this book

On the heels of Boyds Costa (formerly Whitbread) Award winner Restless an erudite and entertaining collection of essays and opinions from one of our generations most talented writers. "Plant one bamboo shootcut bamboo for the rest of your life." William Boyds prolific fruitful career is a testament to this old Chinese saying. Boyd penned his first book review in 1978the proverbial bamboo shootand weve been reaping the rewards ever since. Beginning with the Whitbread Awardwinning A Good Man in Africa William Boyd has written consistently artful intelligent fiction and firmly established himself as an international man of letters. He has done nearly thirty years of research and writing for projects as diverse as a novel about an ecologist studying chimpanzees (Brazzaville Beach) an adapted screenplay about the emotional lives of soldiers (The Trench which he also directed) and a fictional biography of an American painter (Nat Tate). All the while Boyd has been accruing facts and wisdomand publishing it in the form of articles essays and reviews. Now available for the first time in the United States Bamboo gathers together Boyds writing on literature art the movie business television people he has met places he has visited and autobiographical reflections on his African childhood his years at boarding school and the profession of novelist. From Pablo Picasso to the Cannes Film Festival from Charles Dickens to Catherine Deneuve from mini-cabs to Cecil Rhodes this collection is a fascinating and surprisingly revealing companion to the work of one of Britains leading novelists.