SIR MALCOLM BRADBURYSir Malcolm Bradbury, who died on 27 November, 2000, aged 68, successfully combined careers both as a distinguished academic, and as a prolific novelist, critic and television scriptwriter.The BBC adapted his most influential novel - dark campus satire “The History Man” (1975) - into a four-part mini series in 1980.An acclaimed television scriptwriter as well as a novelist, he adapted eight novels including Kingsley Amis’s “The Green Man” and Tom Sharpe’s “Porterhouse Blue” for the small screen.Whilst Professor of American Studies at the University of East Anglia (UEA), he founded a world-renowned creative writing MA that boasts Booker Prize winners Ian McEwan and Kazuo Ishiguro as alumni.Sir Malcolm Bradbury was born on 7 September, 1932, in Sheffield, the son of a railwayman, but spent much of his early childhood in Harrow, London.A heart condition prevented him from taking part in school sports at West Bridgford Grammar in Nottingham, which he attended between 1943 and 1950. He spent time in the library instead, an experience that cemented his passion for literature.He began his first novel whilst an undergraduate at Leicester University, where he achieved a first-class English degree in 1953. He followed this with postgraduate study in London, the USA and at Manchester University.Recuperat ing in hospital after a major heart operation, he completed his first novel “Eating People is Wrong” in 1959. That same hectic year, he got married, and secured a lecturing post at Hull University. In 1961, he moved to Birmingham University.His second novel “Stepping Westward” was published in 1965, the same year he joined the University of East Anglia. He became Professor of American Studies at UEA in 1970, and was to remain there for the rest of his life.Together with novelist Angus Wilson, in 1970 he founded UEA’s prestigious MA course in creative writing. One of his first students was Booker Prize winning author Ian McEwan.His literary career flourished at UEA - notable works included Booker Prize nominated novel “Rates of Exchange” (1983), Hutchinson Novella “Cuts” (1987), his best known novel “The History Man” (1975).Although he had suffered breathing difficulties for several months, his death from pneumonia in 2000 – less than a year after receiving a knighthood and the same year that he published “To the Hermitage” – shocked his friends and admirers.Sir Malcolm Bradbury is regarded as a leading British exponent of the campus novel genre, together with his contemporary at Birmingham University and close friend, David Lodge.His acclaimed novel, “The History Man”, defined this genre in the public imagination. A satire of academic life at the so-called “glass and steel” universities, it charts the licentious career of fictional sociology lecturer and Marxist, Howard Kirk.Founding the UEA MA in Creative Writing may be his greatest contribution to literature. Although not the first such course in the UK, it made creative writing a legitimate subject and a record number of its alumni have had their work published.MA alumni and author Ian McEwan said that Sir Malcolm brought to his teaching: “the full force of his fabulous scholarship and immense passion for other writers.”
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