John Arden
1930–2012
English playwright and novelist born in Barnsley, the son of a glass-factory manager. He studied at King’s College, Cambridge, and architecture at Edinburgh College of Art, and first drew attention with the radio play The Life of Man (1956). His stage plays include Live Like Pigs, Serjeant Musgrave’s Dance and Armstrong’s Last Goodnight, and he wrote many works with his wife, Margaretta D’Arcy, settling in Ireland in 1971. He later wrote Books of Bale and died in Galway in March 2012. Silence Among the Weapons, set as the Roman Republic expands and fails, was shortlisted for the 1982 Booker Prize.
Works
- Silence Among the Weapons (1982)
Prizes
- Silence Among the Weapons — The Booker Prize 1982: Shortlist