Alan Hollinghurst, The Swimming-Pool Library

Bart Eeckhout (University of Antwerp)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.09: English Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary Britain , 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Kerry Myler (Newman University), Jenni Ramone (The Nottingham Trent University)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1988

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

With his first novel, The Swimming-Pool Library (1988), the English fiction writer Alan Hollinghurst made his instant, international breakthrough. His American colleague Edmund White hailed the work as “surely the best book about gay life yet written by an English author” (G4) and John Lanchester admired what he considered a “triumph” of “tonal control” allowing the author to write “graphically and explicitly about homosexual sex while never seeming flustered or prurient, and never wavering in the amused, ironic control of the narrating voice” (11). The novel was translated into seven languages and went on to receive a Somerset Maugham Award as well as an E M Forster Award of the American Academy of Arts and …

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3325 words

Citation: Eeckhout, Bart. "The Swimming-Pool Library". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 07 October 2008 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=7874, accessed 23 November 2024.]

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