DURHAM LITERATURE FESTIVAL 2000

 

ANDREW MOTION

Andrew Motion was born in 1952. He read English at University College, Oxford and from 1976 to 1982 he taught English at the University of Hull. From 1980 to 1982 he edited the Poetry Review and from 1982 to 1989 he was Editorial Director and Poetry Editor at Chatto & Windus. He is now Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. He is a member of the Arts Council of England and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

His work has received the Arvon/Observer Prize, the John Llewelyn Rhys Prize and the Dylan Thomas Prize. In 1994 his biography of Philip Larkin was awarded the Whitbread Prize for Biography, and shortlisted for the NCR Award. The Lamberts won the Somerset Maugham Award. Andrew Motion was appointed as Poet Laureate in May 1999.

Wainewright the Poisoner is a dazzling and boldly original biography by Andrew Motion, Poet Laureate and the celebrated biographer of Larkin and Keats. Combining the form of a ‘confession’ with notes, asides and illuminates, Wainewright the Poisoner strips away the layers of legend and restores Wainewright to his own voice, capturing his dandified style, his charm as well as his callousness, his wit as well as his wantonness – and his deadly unreliability.