Lawrence Durrell

1912–1990

British novelist, poet and travel writer born in India, who was sent to school in England at St Edmund’s, Canterbury. In the 1930s he lived on Corfu with his family, and he later worked as a press officer and diplomat in Egypt, Yugoslavia, Cyprus and elsewhere, as well as directing British Council institutes abroad. Bitter Lemons recounts his years on Cyprus. The Alexandria Quartet (1957–60) made his name, and he spent his later life in Sommières in southern France, where he died in November 1990. Constance, the central volume of The Avignon Quintet, was shortlisted for the 1982 Booker Prize.

Timeline of Lawrence Durrell’s life

Works

• Constance or Solitary Practices (1982)

Prizes

• Constance or Solitary Practices — The Booker Prize 1982: Shortlist