Louis De Bernières

Rob Spence (Edge Hill University)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.09: English Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary Britain , 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Gina Lyle (University of Glasgow), Graham MacPhee (University of Manchester), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Jenni Ramone (The Nottingham Trent University)

Dates

Born 8 Dec 1954
Activity 1974-ongoing

Places

Born in England
Active in England

Activities

Primary

Novelist

Resources

Bernières' Works

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Of Huguenot descent, Louis de Bernières was born in 1954, and had a middle-class upbringing as the son of an army officer in Surrey. As a young man, de Bernières spent a disastrous four months at the British military academy, Sandhurst, which he left for work as a private tutor in Colombia, the inspiration for his early novels

The War of Don Emmanuel’s Nether Parts

The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman

and

Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord

. De Bernières has tended to use exotic locations for his novels, and to set his narratives against a backdrop of huge historical changes, none more so than the war settings of

Captain Corelli’s Mandolin

and

Birds Without Wings

The War of Don Emmanuel’s Nether Parts

, published in 1990, won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for the Best First

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2194 words

Citation: Spence, Rob. "Louis De Bernières". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 06 May 2015 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5525, accessed 23 April 2024.]

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