Conversations with John Fowles

Although best known for his novels <i>The Collector</i> <i>The Magus</i> and <i>The French Lieutenant's Woman</i> John Fowles is also a short story writer a poet a respected translator and a prolific essayist. In his long literary career he has managed the feats of welding stunning innovation to tradition pushing the formal boundaries of literary fiction and still capturing critical acclaim popular success and a worldwide readership. <p/> In <i>Conversations with John Fowles</i> the first book of interviews devoted to the English writer Dianne L. Vipond gathers over twenty of the most revealing interviews Fowles has granted in the last forty years. With critics scholars and journalists he discusses his life his art his distinctive world view and his special relationship with nature. <p/> Throughout his interviews Fowles's remarkable consistency of thought is illuminated as he covers the meaning and genesis of his work. His uncompromising honesty and refreshing lack of guardedness are evident when he compares the naturalness of writing with eating or making love. <p/> From the 1960s through the 1990s this master chronicler of the late half of the twentieth century reveals his serious engagement with social political and philosophical issues. He identifies himself with feminism socialism humanism and the environmental movement and he explores his recurring theme of personal artistic and socio-political freedom. His books he says are about the difficulty of attaining personal freedom especially in terms of discovering what one is. <p/> Any reader who has been intrigued challenged and entertained by his work in the past is sure to find these conversations spanning the writer's career to be stimulating and revealing.