Evelyn Waugh

Evelyn Arthur St John Waugh , born with London the October 28th 1903, died in the Somerset the April 10th 1966, is a British writer ; he is characterized by his very pure and refined practice English language and by his pitilessly sarcastic style.

Biography

Second wire of the literary critic Arthur Waugh and brother of the author of books of voyages Alec Waugh, Evelyn receives his education with the Hertford College of the university of Oxford, which it leaves nevertheless at the end of three years in 1924 after a not very brilliant schooling. He becomes professor in a school with the Wales and, in 1925, tries to commit suicide while moving away from the coasts to the stroke; he is however constrained to make half-turn by a puncture of jellyfish.

He exerts then various trades (apprentice carpenter, journalist) until the publication of Decline and Fall ( Rise and fall ), its first novel, partially autobiographical, impresses of a rare satirical liveliness and an acute sense of the nonsense . The success of this novel immediately propels it on the front of the British literary scene and reintroduces it near the circles of the London high society. It will however take its distances with this medium which had forgotten it after its school disgrace, and will depict it with a wild irony in its following novels.

In 1930 it converts with the Catholicisme, and its religious ideas will appear in a more visible way progressively of its career, until constituting the principal element set of themes of its last works, coexistent with a deep pessimism. It spends the decade 1930-1940 to travel in Asia and Latin America, and to write.

The second great event which will mark its universe is the Second world war. Its short career in the British army and its return to the civil life will add to its disenchantment. It obtains a post of officer in the intelligence services of the Royal Navy thanks to its relations with Randolph Churchill, the son of the Prime Minister Winston Churchill. However, it finds the life in the Navy tedious, and decides to engage in the British Commandos.

It is distinguished at the time of the evacuation of Crete in 1941, but it is put on leave because of its age. One recalls it nevertheless at the end of the war for a military diplomatic mission in Yugoslavia, at the request of his friend Randolph Churchill. It written there a famous report/ratio “remarkable” on persecutions of the clergy by the Communist regime of then, but this report/ratio “is buried” by the British secretary with the Foreign affairs Anthony Eden, because, at that time, Tito is an ally necessary for the the United Kingdom.

Its experiment of the war is approached in its trilogy Sword off Honor .

Waugh was married twice. Its union with Evelyn Gardner finished in 1936 by a cancellation. In 1937 he married with Laura Herbert, with which he had seven children. Did his/her oldest son, Catch Waugh (1939-2001), journalist and novelist, lengthily evoke the Waugh family in his satirical autobiography, Mémoires of an eccentric gentleman , 2001 ( Will this C? 1991).

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