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D. M. Thomas

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This article is about the Cornish novelist. For the American mathematician and nutritionist, seeDiana Thomas (mathematician).

D. M. Thomas
BornDonald Michael Thomas
(1935-01-25)25 January 1935
Carnkie,Cornwall, England
Died26 March 2023(2023-03-26)(aged 88)
Truro,Cornwall, England
Occupation
  • Poet
  • translator
  • novelist
  • editor
  • biographer
  • playwright
Alma materNew College, Oxford
Period1968–2023
Notable works
Notable awardsCholmondeley Award

Los Angeles TimesBook Prize for Fiction
1981
Cheltenham Prize for Literature
1981
Orwell Prize
1999
Spouses4
Children3, includingSean
Website
www.dmthomasonline.net

Donald Michael Thomas(25 January 1935 – 26 March 2023) was a British poet, translator, novelist, editor, biographer and playwright. His work has been translated into 30 languages.

Working primarily as a poet throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Thomas's 1981 poetry collectionDreaming in Bronzereceived aCholmondeley Award.He began writing novels, withThe Flute-Player(his second novel, though the first to be published) appearing in 1979. Thomas's third novelThe White Hotelwon the 1981Los Angeles TimesBook Prize for Fiction,the 1981Cheltenham Prize for Literatureand was shortlisted for the same year'sBooker Prize,whose judges were prevented from naming it joint-winner alongsideSalman Rushdie'sMidnight's Childrendue to prize rules.

Between 1983 and 1990, Thomas published his "Russian Nights Quintet" of novels, beginning withAraratand concluding withSummit(inspired by a meeting betweenMikhail GorbachevandRonald Reaganin Switzerland) andLying Together(which predicted thedissolution of the Soviet Unionand the return ofAleksandr Solzhenitsynto Russia). He then publishedFlying in to Love(which concerns theassassination of John F. Kennedy) and five other novels.Bloodaxe BookspublishedThe Puberty Tree,the British edition of Thomas's "selected" poems, in 1992. This followed thePenguin Books1983 publication ofSelected Poems,released for U.S. readers following his well-received novelThe White Hotel.

A translator from Russian into English, Thomas worked particularly onAnna AkhmatovaandAlexander Pushkin,as well as onYevgeny Yevtushenko.He also wrote a biography of Solzhenitsyn, which was awarded anOrwell Prizein 1999.

Early life and education

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Thomas was born to plasterer Harold Thomas and his wife Amy on 25 January 1935, inCarnkie, Redruthin Cornwall.[1][2]He was a descendant of miners and carpenters.[3]His father spent time living in California during the 1920s and was fond of the United States.[4][2]

Thomas attended Trewirgie Primary School between 1940 and 1945, thenRedruth Grammar Schoolfrom 1946 until 1949.[1][5]In 1949, he and his family moved to the Australian city ofMelbourne.[1]Thomas spent the years between 1949 and 1951 atUniversity High Schoolthere.[1]In 1951, he returned to Carnkie and to Redruth Grammar School.[1]

HisNational Servicewas from 1953 until 1955, most of which he spent learning Russian.[1]He retained a lifelong interest inRussian cultureandliterature.This culminated in a series of well-received translations of Russian poetry from the 1980s onwards, particularly fromAnna AkhmatovaandAlexander Pushkin,as well as fromYevgeny Yevtushenko.[6]Thomas graduated withFirst Class HonoursinEnglishfromNew College, Oxford,having studied there between 1955 and 1958.[1]Between 1959 and 1963 he was an English teacher at Teignmouth Grammar School.[1]From 1963 he was an English lecturer atHereford College of Educationuntil he was maderedundantupon its closure in 1978.[1]

Writing

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Thomas's first published work was a short story inThe Isis Magazinein 1959.[1]He published poetry and some prose in the British science fiction magazineNew Worlds(from 1968). Much of what he published until he was 40 years of age was poetry.[7]Two Voices,his first book, was published in 1968; it consisted of poetry.[1]Its title poem relates to science fiction/fantasy.[8]

The title poem ofLogan Stone(1971) refers to abalancing rockin Cornwall.[9]Love and Other Deaths(1975) features elegiac poems relating to family.[10]The Honeymoon Voyage(1978) was written around the time of his mother's death.[11]His mother died in 1975.[1]

The Flute-Player,the second novel Thomas wrote, was also published in 1978.[1]Inspired by Russian poetry (especially Anna Akhmatova), it was his first novel to be published and does not contain much dialogue; he had earlier writtenBirthstone.[12]Birthstonewas published in 1980; it is the only one of Thomas's novels to feature his native Cornwall and to deploy instances of Cornish speech.[13]There is also sex, suspenders andpsychoanalysis;theLondon Review of Booksdescribed it as "Fantasy asFreudenvisaged it, powerful enough to counter reality, working like free association and allowing the unconscious to take over ".[13]Dreaming in Bronze,Thomas's 1981 poetry collection, secured for him aCholmondeley Award.[14]

However, the work that made him famous was not poetry; it was his erotic and somewhat fantastical novelThe White Hotel(1981), the story of a woman undergoing psychoanalysis, which proved very popular incontinental Europeand the United States.[15]It was shortlisted for the 1981Booker Prize,[16]coming a close second, according to one of the judges,[17]to the winner,Salman Rushdie'sMidnight's Children.[18]Thomas stated in an interview on BBC Radio Cornwall in 2015 that the Booker judges wanted to split the prize between himself and Rushdie, but that the Board informed them that the rules would not permit this,[19]although the rules were indeed changed in this respect the following year. It has also elicited considerable controversy, as some of its passages are taken fromAnatoly Kuznetsov'sBabi Yar,a novel aboutthe Holocaust.In general, however, Thomas's use of such "composite material" (material taken from other sources and imitations of other writers) is seen as morepostmodernthanplagiarist.[20]Graham GreeneselectedThe White Hotelfor his "Books of the Year".[21]William Goldingalso selectedThe White Hotelas his Book of the Year for 1981.[22]Thomas wrote the book during asabbaticalat New College, Oxford in 1978–79.[1]He wrote some of it inHereford,where he was living and used two typewriters, one in each city.[23]It was translated into 30 languages.[24]

William Goldingin 1983; ten years later, D.M. Thomas visited Golding's house on the night of his death.

Follow-up novelArarat,published in 1983, was the first of a series concerning theSoviet Union,referred to as the Russian Nights Quintet;[25][26]it was inspired by Thomas's reading of Pushkin and a review of an Armenian poetry anthology whichThe Times Literary Supplementasked him to write.[25]It was followed bySwallow(1984),[26]Sphinx(1986)[27]Summit(1987)[28]andLying Together(1990).[29]Summitwas inspired by a meeting betweenMikhail GorbachevandRonald Reaganin Switzerland, whileLying Togetherpredicted thedissolution of the Soviet Unionand the return ofAleksandr Solzhenitsynto Russia.[28][29]

Thomas's 1992 novelFlying in to Loveconcerns theassassination of John F. Kennedy(the "Love" in the title refers toDallas Love Fieldairport, where Kennedy had landed that morning), as well as the death of his own father in 1960.[2]His 1993 novelPictures at an Exhibitionallowed Thomas to mix his interests in Freud,Nazismand the Holocaust.[30]Its writing was set off by Thomas's attendance at afeministexhibition, specifically its treatment of theEdvard MunchcompositionMadonna;writing in theSunday Independent,critic and journalistClare BoylandescribedPictures at an Exhibitionas "a compulsive page-turner".[30]Thomas's 1994 novelEating Pavlovais set in London in September 1940 and concerns Freud as he dies;The New York Timesdescribed it as "the most devious and tragically generous Freud ever envisioned".[31]

His 1998 biographyAlexander Solzhenitsyn: a Century in His Lifewas awarded anOrwell Prizein 1999.[32]

Thomas's 2004 poetry collectionDear Shadowsis inspired by photography and its title is a reference to Yeats.[4]His 2006 poetry collectionNot Saying Everythingis a tribute to his second wife, Denise (whom Thomas described as hisMuse), following her death from cancer in 1998.[33]Unknown Shores,a collection released in 2009, consists of all of Thomas's poetry relating to science fiction.[34]

Reluctant for many years to reread his own novels, he eventually did so in October 2010 and concluded that his "strongest" novels are:The White Hotel(1981),Ararat(1983),Flying in to Love(1992),Pictures at an Exhibition(1993),Eating Pavlova(1994) andThe Flute-Player(1979).[35]

His fourteenth novel (and his first in fourteen years),Hunters in the Snowappeared in 2014 and takesViennaahead of theFirst World Waras its setting.[36]

Thomas wrote reviews forThe Times Literary Supplement.[25][37]He was one of the last people to seeWilliam Golding,theNobel laureate,alive. Thomas visited Golding's house inPerranarworthalas a guest one evening in June 1993; he was the last person unrelated to Golding to leave, doing so around half an hour before Golding collapsed and died whilst preparing to go to bed.[38][22]Thomas blamed himself for Golding's death and wondered if it would have happened if he had left earlier, with the other guests.[38][22]

Awards and honours

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Works

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Poetry

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[7]

  • Two Voices(Cape Goliard, 1968)[8]
  • Logan Stone(Cape Goliard, 1971)[9]
  • The Shaft(Arc, 1973), a long poem[3]
  • Love and Other Deaths(Elek Books,1975)[10]
  • The Honeymoon Voyage(Secker & Warburg,1978)[11]
  • Orpheus in Hell(Sceptre,1977)[40]
  • Protest(Hereford, 1980), after a poem by the medieval Armenian poetFrik;with anengravingby Reg Boulton[41]
  • Dreaming in Bronze(Secker & Warburg, 1981)[14]
  • Selected Poems(Penguin Books,1983), released in the United States followingThe White Hotel[42]
  • The Puberty Tree(Bloodaxe Books,1992), the British "selected" edition of Thomas's poetry[43]
  • Dear Shadows(Fal Publications, 2004)[4]
  • Not Saying Everything(Bluechrome, 2006)[33]
  • Unknown Shores(Bluechrome, 2009)[34]
  • Flight and Smoke(Francis Boutle, 2010, with signed limited editions available from 2009)[44]
  • Two Countries(Francis Boutle, 2011)[45]
  • Vintage Ghosts(Francis Boutle, 2012), a verse novel, with sixlinocutillustrations by Tim Roberts[24]
  • Mrs English & other women(Francis Boutle, 2014)[46]
  • Corona Man: A Fictional Verse Journal in the Plague Year(The Cornovia Press, 2020)ISBN1-908878-18-5
  • The Last Waltz: Poems(The Cornovia Press, 2021)ISBN1-908878-22-3
  • A Child of Love and War: Verse Memoir(The Cornovia Press, 2021)ISBN1-908878-23-1

Novels

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[35] Thomas had 14 novels published between 1979 and 2014. The following books form a series known as the Russian Nights Quintet:[26]Ararat(1983),Swallow(1984),Sphinx(1986)Summit(1987) andLying Together(1990).[25][27][28][29]

Memoirs

[edit]

[49]

Biography

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  • Alexander Solzhenitsyn: A Century in His Life(St Martins, 1998)[52]

Play

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  • Hell Fire Corner(2004)[53]

Texts edited

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  • The Granite Kingdom(Bradford Barton Ltd,Truro,1970), an anthology of poems about Cornwall, edited by D. M. Thomas[54]
  • Songs from the Earth(Lodenek Press), an anthology of poems byJohn Harris,edited by D. M. Thomas[54]
  • Poetry in Crosslight(Longman,1975)[54]

Translations

[edit]

[6]

Personal life

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Thomas married on four occasions and fathered three children from the first two of those marriages.[1]He married his first wife, Maureen Skewes, in 1958.[1]He had a daughter (born 1960) and a son,Sean(born 1963), with her.[1]He married Denise Aldred in 1976 and their son was born the following year; she would die (of cancer)[33]in 1998, with the three of them having moved toTruroin 1987.[1]He married Victoria Field in 1998 and Angela Embree in 2005.[1]

As well as the Russians Pushkin and Akhmatova, Thomas listed his favourite poets asRobert Frost,William Shakespeare,W. B. Yeats,Charles CausleyandEmily Dickinson.[1]His musical interests includedJean Sibelius,Sergei RachmaninoffandElgar;his favourite painter wasJohannes Vermeer,his second favourite,Edvard Munch.[1][43]

Thomas died at his home in Truro on 26 March 2023, at the age of 88.[63][64]

See also

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References

[edit]
  1. ^abcdefghijklmnopqrstu"Personal History".I'm Cornish, and very proud of it. It's where I live now.
  2. ^abcd"Flying in to Love".
  3. ^ab"The Shaft".
  4. ^abc"Dear Shadows".
  5. ^BBC website – Donald Michael Thomas
  6. ^abcd"Russian Translations".
  7. ^ab"Poetry".
  8. ^ab"Two Voices".
  9. ^ab"Logan Stone".
  10. ^ab"Love and Other Deaths".
  11. ^ab"The Honeymoon Voyage".
  12. ^abc"The Flute-Player".
  13. ^abc"Birthstone".
  14. ^abc"Dreaming in Bronze".
  15. ^Sweeney Byrne, Lucy (25 April 2020)."The White Hotel by DM Thomas: A funny, disgusting, essential work".The Irish Times.Archived fromthe originalon 7 November 2022.
  16. ^ab"Prize archive: 1981".Archived fromthe originalon 2 December 2010.Retrieved21 January2011.
  17. ^"The Times & The Sunday Times".The Times.Archived fromthe originalon 16 June 2011.Retrieved29 November2016.
  18. ^"Booker Prize".Archived fromthe originalon 2 December 2010.Retrieved21 January2011.
  19. ^The Cornovia Press [@CornoviaPress] (14 July 2020)."DM Thomas – BBC Radio Cornwall – 23 January 2015"(Tweet).Archivedfrom the original on 7 November 2022 – viaTwitter.Interview begins at 5:38.
  20. ^Felder, L., D M Thomas – The Plagiarism Controversy inDictionary of Literary Biography Yearbook, 1982.
  21. ^abcd"The White Hotel".
  22. ^abc"Last words".The Guardian.10 June 2006.I didn't take the hint; I was enjoying myself too much. I started to sing, as I often do when I'm drunk and at ease... There were uneasy smiles, and I realised it was time to leave. One o'clock. I staggered out to my car, and saw them standing outside waving as I drove erratically away, seeing double... Golding had died at about 1.30am, while getting ready for bed, of a massive heart attack. I thought, My God, I've killed him! Keeping him up too late and causing him to drink too much... I wrote to his daughter expressing those fears... It was an enviable departure. I feel privileged to have had a share in it; and I still treasure the last writing of William Golding – his phone number.Saturday 10 June 2006 (ReviewSection).
  23. ^"Celluloid dreams".The Guardian.28 August 2004.
  24. ^ab"Vintage Ghosts".Archived fromthe originalon 23 May 2022.
  25. ^abcde"Ararat".
  26. ^abcd"Swallow".
  27. ^abc"Sphinx".
  28. ^abcd"Summit".
  29. ^abcd"Lying Together".
  30. ^abc"Pictures at an Exhibition".
  31. ^ab"Eating Pavlova".
  32. ^ab"1999 Book prize winner".Orwell Prize.
  33. ^abc"Not Saying Everything".
  34. ^ab"Unknown Shores".
  35. ^ab"Novels".
  36. ^"D M Thomas".Archived fromthe originalon 15 April 2022.
  37. ^McCulloch, Andrew."'Stone'".The Times Literary Supplement.In 1978, the poet, translator and novelist D. M. Thomas drew a useful distinction between twentieth-century English and Russian poetry in a TLS review of a collection of poems by Osip Mandelstam.
  38. ^abSkene Catling, Patrick (5 January 2009)."Bleak Hotel by DM Thomas – review".The Daily Telegraph.Archived fromthe originalon 15 February 2018.'The movie-making business is like sex', according to DM Thomas, the Cornish novelist... He thinks a late night of his drinking and singing may have caused William Golding to die the next day.
  39. ^"1981 Los Angeles Times Book Prize – Fiction Winner and Nominees".Awards Archive.25 March 2020.Retrieved10 March2022.
  40. ^"Orpheus in Hell".National Library of Australia.Archived fromthe originalon 7 November 2022.
  41. ^"Protest / a poem by D. M. Thomas; after a medieval Armenian poem by Frik; designed and engraved by Reg. Boulton".Royal Academy of Arts.Archived fromthe originalon 7 November 2022.
  42. ^"Selected Poems".
  43. ^ab"The Puberty Tree".I love the cover, a magnificent painting called 'Picture' by Munch --my second favourite painter after Vermeer.
  44. ^"Flight and Smoke".
  45. ^Thomas, D. M. (1 June 2011).Two Countries.Francis Boutle Publishers.ISBN9781903427651.Archived fromthe originalon 28 September 2021.{{cite book}}:|work=ignored (help)
  46. ^"Mrs English & other women".Archived fromthe originalon 23 May 2022.
  47. ^"Lady with a Laptop".
  48. ^"Charlotte".
  49. ^"Memoirs".
  50. ^"Memories and Hallucinations".
  51. ^"Bleak Hotel".
  52. ^"Biography".
  53. ^"Hell Fire Corner".
  54. ^abc"Poetry in Crosslight".
  55. ^"Requiem and Poem without a Hero".
  56. ^"Way of All the Earth".
  57. ^"The Bronze Horseman".
  58. ^"A Dove in Santiago".
  59. ^"Boris Godunov".
  60. ^"You Will Hear Thunder".
  61. ^"Selected Poems: Anna Akhmatova".
  62. ^"Everyman's Library Pocket Poets: Anna Akhmatova".
  63. ^"DM Thomas obituary".The Times.28 March 2023.Retrieved28 March2023.
  64. ^Grimes, William (29 March 2023)."D.M. Thomas, 88, Dies; His 'White Hotel' Was a Surprise Best Seller".The New York Times.Retrieved29 March2023.
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