The Literary Life of World War II

The International Anthony Burgess Foundation Podcast

In this episode we’re looking at the state of Literary London during the Second World War with writer Will Loxley.

Will’s book Writing in the Dark: Bloomsbury, the Blitz and Horizon Magazine, brings to life the cultural and intellectual environment that influenced some of Anthony Burgess’s most defining thoughts about writing and literature. Many of the writers that feature in this story, such as Stephen Spender, George Orwell, Dylan Thomas and Evelyn Waugh, had the development of their creative lives arrested by the war. This was the same fate as Burgess, who felt he had been exiled to a military post in Gibraltar. But all of these writers tried to make sense of the war through literature and what they produced remains some of the most important work of the twentieth century.

Will Loxley is a writer based in Sheffield. Writing in the Dark is his first book and was called ‘energetic and enthused’ by the Times. He is currently working on his second book, A Novel Idea: The Race to Master the English Novel from Daniel Defoe to Jane Austen.

Will can be found on Twitter @WillLoxley

Writing in the Dark is published by Weidenfeld & Nicholson and is now available in paperback from your favourite place to buy books.

For more about Anthony Burgess and to find out how you can support the work of the Burgess Foundation, visit our website.

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