Author of Nice Work and Small World dies aged 89 | Global News Avenue

Writer and critic David Lodge, best known for his Booker Prize-nominated comic campus novels It’s a Small World and Good Work, has died aged 89.

In the books, the former literature professor satirized academic life, and both books were later adapted into television series.

His other notable works include “Changing Places” and “The British Museum is Falling Down,” which tells the story of a poor student who becomes distracted while trying to write his thesis.

His publisher, Liz Foley, said: “His contribution to literary culture was immense, both in terms of his criticism and through his masterful and iconic novels that have become classics.”

Her statement added: “He was also an incredibly kind, humble and funny man and I felt extremely lucky to have worked with him and enjoyed his wisdom and companionship on his recent publications.”

His agent Jonny Geller recalled him as a “true gentleman” whose “social commentary, meditations on death and hilarious observations place him in the pantheon of great British comic writers.” A worthy addition.”

The publishing house Javier Secco said he died peacefully surrounded by his family.

His family issued a statement saying they were “extremely proud of his achievements, especially the joy his novels brought to so many people.”

“It was great fun growing up with David Lodge as a father,” his children recalled.

“Colleagues from the University of Birmingham and writers from around the world visit our home in Birmingham,” they said.

“Conversations at the dinner table were always lively, with our mother Mary very insistent on her opinions and David always ready with a reference book to look up controversial matters.”

Born and raised in London, Lodge published his first novel in 1960, but made his real breakthrough in 1975 with Changing Places.

In 1980, he made his debut with How Far Can You Go? won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award for its account of young Catholics and their reactions to the Vatican’s contraceptive policy.

The sequels to Changing Places were Small World: An Academic Romance (1984) and Brilliant Works (1988), both nominated for the Booker Prize.

2018, The Times says Lodge is “probably the most outstanding non-prize winning novelist of his generation”.

“He mines the gaping seams of thwarted ambition, failed relationships and sexual disappointment to create brilliant social comedy,” wrote literary editor Robbie Millen.

In the same essay, Laura Freeman said: “His free-spirited novels are full of whirling spirits: corridor creeps at literary conferences, mistaken identities, sexy twins, missed planes, failed plans.”

Freeman points out that BBC Two’s 1989 adaptation of Nice Work included the first use of the word “clitoris” in prime-time television.

Lodge wrote in his second memoir, “A Writer’s Luck,” that he considered the move “an honor of mine.”

In 1992, Lodge published The Art of Fiction, an influential collection of essays on literary technique that cited classic examples from writers including Henry James, Virginia Woolf, and James Joyce.

Lodge, whose other books include The Cure, Deaf Sentences and Parts of a Man, was awarded a CBE in 1998 for services to literature.

A year ago, he was awarded the French Order of Arts and Letters.

Speaking at the Hay Festival in 2015, Lodge admitted that he had run out of ideas and that he now only writes non-fiction.

“Writers like me who start writing early may reach their peak in their 40s or 50s,” he says. “After that, writing a book became more difficult and took longer to write.”