Muriel Spark

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Muriel Spark’s many novels and stories are windows into lives that are often touched in some way, be it by inner demons, magic or simply the author’s uniquely idiosyncratic point of view.  They are narrated with a quiet – though frequently zany – wit, a lightness that may be tinged with sadness.  There is much of the poet in this writer, who is far more than her famous The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie: she is often quite wicked, but she is always a delight.  A Far Cry From Kensington, set in the subfusc world of 1950s London publishing (a milieu of which the author has personal experience), is one of my own favourites, and her autobiographical memoir, Curriculum Vitae, is wonderful.  Do try her – you will be glad to have got to know Dame Muriel.

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