Of Huguenot descent, Louis de Bernières was born in 1954, and had a middle-class upbringing as the son of an army officer in Surrey. As a young man, de Bernières spent a disastrous four months at the British military academy, Sandhurst, which he left for work as a private tutor in Colombia, the inspiration for his early novels The War of Don Emmanuel’s Nether Parts, The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman and Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord. De Bernières has tended to use exotic locations for his novels, and to set his narratives against a backdrop of huge historical changes, none more so than the war settings of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and Birds Without Wings.
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Citation: Spence, Rob. "Louis De Bernières". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 06 May 2015 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5525, accessed 26 November 2024.]
