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LIKE A FIERY ELEPHANT: THE STORY OF BS JOHNSON
By Jonathan Coe. Published by Picador
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Jonathan Coe is the winner of the £30,000 BBC Four Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction 2005 for his book, Like a Fiery Elephant: The Story of BS Johnson, published by Picador.
In his heyday during the 1960s and early 70s, BS Johnson was one of the best-known young novelists in Britain. A passionate advocate for the avant-garde in both literature and film, he gained notoriety for his forthright views on the future of the novel and for his idiosyncratic ways of putting them into practice. His innovations included a book with holes cut through the pages, and a novel published in a box so that its unbound chapters could be read in any order.
But in November 1973 Johnson's lifelong depression got the better of him, and he was found dead at his north London home. He had taken his own life at the age of 40.
 Read an extract from Like a Fiery Elephant (PDF 21 KB)
Jonathan Coe's long-awaited biography is based upon unique access to the vast collection of papers Johnson left behind, and upon dozens of interviews with those who knew him best.
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Jonathan Coe was born in Birmingham in 1961. An award-winning novelist, biographer and critic, his novels include What a Carve Up!, The House of Sleep and The Closed Circle. He was recently made a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Jonathan Coe lives in London.
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Jonathan Coe |
"Quite the most exciting, impassioned and generous literary biography
I think I have ever read... A masterpiece and after it nothing will be the same again." The Times
 Samuel Johnson Prize Homepage
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