Jim Crace
Photograph © Tim Wainwright. Permission requested
'A writer of hallucinatory skill'
John Updike
***
Please see Note on
copyright at the bottom of this contents page.
An apology:
To those visitors who may have tried
to access the site over the summer months
and found the service erratic, my sincere apologies –
in most cases the interruptions were due to technical problems
beyond my control (or comprehension!).
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other ways,
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What’s New:
The site, for
information about the writer Jim Crace, is now six years old.
Much archived
material, including interviews, uncollected short stories, excerpts from
novels, journalism and comment, can be found by following the link to Highlights, or using the section headings in the
left-hand frame.
May 2008
“A quintessential American story”
The paperback edition of The
Pesthouse
was released in the
To read extracts from
of Jim Crace’s novel, click here
The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center
at The University of Texas at
has acquired the archive of Jim Crace.
The archive contains all of Crace's manuscripts,
not just of his novels but of stories, plays and essays.
The collection also includes notes and outlines for works,
reviews, trade journals, radio plays, art work,
recordings, press clippings, juvenilia, correspondence
and a proposal for two novels, The
Finalist and Archipelago.
"Earlier this year I had the good fortune
to pick my way through the riches of the Ransom Center in Austin,
including notebooks and illustrations by my personal favourites
— William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and T. H. White,"
said Crace, who was Writer-in-Residence at Austin in January 2008.
"It was an enlightening and immensely moving experience.
"So
it is with excitement and delight
that I learn that the Center will also provide a home for my own archive,
spanning everything from first childhood attempts at fiction
and teenage poems through 17 years of journalism
and nine published novels
to page drafts of my current ongoing book
(partly set in Austin) and watercolour sketches
for an upcoming fictional memoir.
It is, of course, strange and even a little distressing
to part with so many valued and familiar papers —
but I am certain that it is better that they are available
and cared for in the Ransom Center
than boxed and shut away in the attic of our house
in Birmingham, England.
No writer could wish for more than to be allocated a corner
in such a fine, important and world-class collection."
The Crace materials will be accessible once organized and housed.
Crace in
March 2008
“The novel vividly imagines the Judean desert,
a comfortless place of bleaching light.
But it also creates a strange linguistic space…”
John Mullan, professor
of English at University College London,
discusses Jim Crace’s Quarantine
in the Guardian book club series.
To read the first article, click here.
You can access subsequent
instalments in the book club series
including readers’ reactions to Quarantine
directly from the Guardian website.
To read Jim Crace’s contribution
to the discussion,
describing the origins of Quarantine
in a care hostel in
click here.
Feb 2008
“It’s about two kinds of heroism…”
Jim Crace discusses writer’s block,
the pleasures of a life in storytelling,
and his projected novel about American and British kinds of bravery
with Shawn Badgley of the Austin
Chronicle.
To read the interview, please
click here.
Jan 2008
A New Year’s round-up
of reflections and memories:
On a childhood Christmas
On the first memorable novel
In conversation with Joan Bakewell on belief
and see Jim Crace’s pick of bird books in Best Books
Nov 2007
“We’re all, to some extent, autobiographical writers…
but I’ve not been my subject-matter before…”
Jim Crace discusses his work in progress,
his approach to writing,
and the role of literature
in a podcast from the
To listen, please click here.
“This novel…always leaves me in a state of rapture,
as if I’d received a revelation of my own,”
says the author and Harvard
professor of creative writing
Bret Anthony Johnston of Jim Crace’s
Quarantine.
To find out why, please click here.
Jim
Crace will be Distinguished Writer in Residence
at the
at the
from 20
Jan-20 Feb 2008.
He will
give a public reading in
on 7
February 2008.
Picador,
who signed a three-book deal with Jim Crace last year,
will
re-issue seven novels in January 2008.
“I thought
this would be my political statement and finally I would write a political
book.
But the moment of abandonment came to me: this is not a lament,
it is a love song…”
Jim Crace talks about
the ideas behind The Pesthouse
in an
interview in The Writing Magazine (September
2007).
To download a pdf of the article,
please click here
This web site was
launched in January 2000.
To read archived material from this site click
News and highlights to Dec 2007
This site also contains the
following sections:
Chronology: a brief biographical and
literary chronology.
Books: a discussion of Jim Crace's
novels,
with extensive links and pointers to reviews and commentary about them.
This is the main section of the site. I invite ideas and contributions
from anyone with an interest in Crace's work.
Other
writings: a
list (and some e-texts) of other writing by Crace,
including his first published stories, plays, journalism, reviews and opinions.
Forthcoming: a list of forthcoming
publications, appearances, etc.
Context: links and pointers to
information and discussion about
themes present in Crace's work, including exclusive interviews with Jim Crace.
Feedback: where you tell me about yourself
and how to improve the site.
Jim Crace
I would like to hear from anyone
with ideas for content and links.
Please email me, Andrew Hewitt, at aghewitt@yahoo.com.
Last update: 23 February 2008
Note on copyright:
Original material on
this web site is © Andrew Hewitt 2000-2007
and is available for literary non-commercial uses only.
Repurposed material is copyright as shown.
Please feel free to contact me if you want to reproduce any material
from this web site, I will try and help arrange permission if you require it.
Jim Crace's books are available
from Blackwell's Online
Bookshop