Marginal Notes, Doubtful Statements

Non-fiction, 1990-2013

'I decided to divide the collection into two halves: the first consists of pieces mainly on individual writers, musicians or filmmakers; the second consists of autobiographical works, expanded to include a few reflections on politics, general literary issues and sometimes my own writing.

Each half has a specific character. Many (if not most) of the figures discussed in Part One are outside the mainstream or the canon: they have been marginalised either by their gender, their aesthetic, by some awkwardness of temperament or even (from the British point of view) simply by having the bad manners to write in a language other than English. Hence 'Marginal Notes'. In Part Two I noticed there was another emerging theme: the importance of doubt to (my) writing, its potential as both a liberating and an inhibiting force, culminating in my Tolkien lecture on this subject. Hence 'Doubtful Statements'.' - - Jonathan Coe, July 2013

About Jonathan Coe

Jonathan Coe was born in Birmingham in 1961. He is the award-winning, bestselling author of 14 novels: The Accidental Woman, A Touch of Love, The Dwarves of Death, What a Carve Up!, The House of Sleep, The Rotters’ Club, The Closed Circle, The Rain Before It Falls, The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim, Expo 58, Number 11, Middle England, Mr Wilder and Me and Bournville. He has won the Costa Novel Award, the Prix du Livre Européen, the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, the Prix Médicis Étranger, the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize, amongst many others. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and an Officier de l'Ordre de l'Art et des Lettres. His work been translated into 22 languages. Jonathan Coe lives in London.
Details
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • ISBN: 9780241968901
  • Length: 256 pages
  • Price: £4.99