Norman Lewis (author)

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Norman Lewis
Born (1908-06-28)June 28, 1908
Forty Hill, Enfield
Died Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist.
Saffron Walden, Essex
Nationality British
Occupation travel writer, novelist, journalist
Known for descriptions and defence of indigenous peoples

Norman Lewis (28 June 1908 – 22 July 2003) was an influential British journalist and a prolific author. Best known for his travel writing, he also wrote twelve novels and several volumes of autobiography.

Subjects he explored in his travel writing include life in Naples during the Allied liberation of Italy (Naples '44); Vietnam and French colonial Indochina (A Dragon Apparent); Indonesia (An Empire of the East); tribal peoples of India (A Goddess in the Stones); Sicily and the Mafia (The Honoured Society and In Sicily); and the destruction caused by Christian missionaries in Latin America and elsewhere (The Missionaries).

A newspaper article entitled "Genocide in Brazil" (1968) prompted the creation of Survival International—an organisation dedicated to the protection of indigenous peoples around the world.

Graham Greene considered Lewis one of the best writers of the twentieth century.[citation needed]

Early life

Lewis was born in Forty Hill, Enfield, Middlesex, a suburb of London, and attended Enfield Grammar School. His parents were spiritualists and hoped young Lewis would grow up to become a medium; his father worked as a pharmacist. As a young man, Lewis tried a variety of ways to make a living in the Great Depression of the 1930s, including self-employed wedding photographer, auctioneer, umbrella wholesaler and motorcycle racer.[1]

Lewis served in World War II with the British Army, being commissioned as a second lieutenant and later becoming a member of an armoured regiment, the 1st King's Dragoon Guards, which served in the Italian Campaign. He wrote an account of his experiences during the Allied occupation of Italy, Naples '44 (1978); The Telegraph called this "one of the great first-hand accounts of the Second World War."[1] Shortly after the war he wrote books about Burma, Golden Earth (1952), and French Indochina, A Dragon Apparent (1951), which The Telegraph similarly praised as " the finest record of Indo-China before the devastation wrought by the Vietnam War".[1]

Tribal societies

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Further information: Survival International and tribe

Another major concern of Lewis's was the impact of missionary activity on tribal societies in Latin America and elsewhere. He was hostile to the activities of missionaries, especially American evangelicals. This is covered in his book The Missionaries, and several shorter pieces. He frequently said that he regarded his life's major achievement as the worldwide reaction to writing on tribal societies in South America. In 1968, his article "Genocide in Brazil", published in the Sunday Times after a journey to Brazil with the war photographer Don McCullin,[2] created such an outcry that it led to the creation of the organisation Survival International, dedicated to the protection of first peoples around the world. Lewis later said of this article that it was "the most worthwhile of all my endeavours".[3]

Writing

Lewis was fascinated by cultures which were little touched by the modern world. This was reflected in his books on travels in Indonesia, An Empire of the East, and among the tribal peoples of India, A Goddess in the Stones.

Lewis wrote several volumes of autobiography, again concerned primarily with his observations of the many places in which he lived at various times, including St Catherine's Island in South Wales near Tenby, the Bloomsbury district of London during World War II, Nicaragua, a Spanish fishing village (Voices of the Old Sea),[1] and a village near Rome.

Lewis also wrote twelve novels.[2] Some of these enjoyed significant success at the time of publication, but his literary reputation rests mainly on his travel writing. According to Graham Greene, Lewis was "one of the best writers, not of any particular decade, but of our century."

Family

Lewis's first wife, Ernestina Corvaja,[1] was a Swiss-Sicilian.[2] Sicilian life, including the role of the Mafia, was a major theme, which he explored in The Honoured Society (1964) and In Sicily (2000). While never losing sight of the horrors inflicted by the Mafia, his accounts were not sensationalist. They were based on a detailed understanding of Sicilian society, and a deep sympathy with the sufferings of the Sicilian people. The Latin connection encouraged him to travel, resulting in his first book, Spanish Adventure (1935). The marriage had however failed by the start of the Second World War in 1939.[1] He was briefly married a second time, after the war.[1]

He died in Saffron Walden, Essex, survived by his third wife, Lesley, and their son, Gawaine, and two daughters, Kiki and Samara, and by a son, Gareth, and daughter, Karen, from his second marriage with Hester, and by a son, Ito, from his first marriage.[1]

Lewis said that he believed in "absolutely nothing" and indeed "I do not believe in belief." He did not believe that humanity was making progress.[4] He talked about "the intense joy I derive from being alive",[2] and said he was "exceedingly happy".[4]

Bibliography

Novels

  • Samara (Cape 1949)
  • Within the Labyrinth (Cape 1950; US: 1986 Carroll)
  • A Single Pilgrim (Cape 1953; US: 1953 Rinehart)
  • The Day of the Fox (Cape 1955; US: 1955 Rinehart)
  • The Volcanoes Above Us (Cape 1957; US: 1957 Pantheon, not dated)
  • Darkness Visible (Cape 1960; US: 1960 Pantheon)
  • The Tenth Year of the Ship (Collins 1962; US: 1962 Harcourt)
  • A Small War Made to Order (Collins 1966; US: 1966 Brace)
  • Every Man's Brother (Heinemann 1967; US: 1968 Morrow)
  • Flight from a Dark Equator (Collins 1972; US: 1972 Putnam)
  • The Sicilian Specialist (Random 1974; UK: 1975 Collins)
  • The German Company (Collins 1979)
  • The Cuban Passage (Collins 1982; US: 1982 Pantheon)
  • A Suitable Case for Corruption (Hamilton 1984; US: 1984 Pantheon, as The Man in the Middle)
  • The March of the Long Shadows (Secker 1987)

Travel and miscellaneous

  • Spanish Adventure (1935, later disowned)
  • Sand and Sea in Arabia (Routledge 1938)
  • A Dragon Apparent: Travels in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam (Cape 1951, Eland 1982; US: Scribner's 1951)
  • Golden Earth: Travels in Burma (Cape 1952; US: Scribner's 1952)
  • The Changing Sky: The Travels of a Novelist (Cape 1959; US: Pantheon 1959)
  • The Honoured Society: The Mafia Conspiracy Observed (Collins 1964, Eland 2003; US: Putnam's 1964)
  • Naples '44 (Collins 1978, Eland 1983; US: Pantheon 1978)
  • Voices of the Old Sea (Hamilton 1984; US: Viking 1985)
  • Jackdaw Cake (Hamilton 1985)
  • A View of the World (Eland 1986)
  • The Missionaries (Secker 1988; US: McGraw 1988)
  • To Run Across the Sea (Cape 1989)
  • A Goddess in the Stones: Travels in India (Cape 1991; US: Holt 1992) (Thomas Cook Travel Book Award)
  • An Empire of the East: Travels in Indonesia (Cape 1993; US: Holt 1993)
  • I Came I Saw (Picador 1994) - extended issue of 'Jackdaw Cake'
  • The World The World (Cape 1996; US: Holt 1997)
  • The Happy Ant-Heap (Cape 1998)
  • In Sicily (Cape 2000)
  • A Voyage by Dhow (and other pieces) (Cape 2001)
  • The Tomb in Seville (Cape 2003)

See also

References

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  3. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

Further reading

External links

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