GORDON BOWKER

México ejerció un atractivo singular, hecho de fascinación y terror, sobre varios escritores anglosajones notables del siglo XX. Pero sólo en Malcolm Lowry la mezcla de la vida y la obra alcanza abismos en verdad infernales, volcanicos, como hay tantos en la geografia mexicana. Los devotos lectores de Bajo el volcan (1947) - sin exageracion, una de las cumbres literarias del siglo XX - supieron siempre que aquella novela magistral escondia claves personales que pedian una biografia definitiva que las revelara. Nadie mejor que Gordon Bowker para escribirla.Biografo de Orwell y Durrell y compilador editorial de Lowry, Bowker explora con minucioso detalle, a partir de fuentes y testimonios hasta ahora desconocidos, y una sensibilidad a un tiempo cuidadosa y descarnada, el laberinto existencial de Lowry: el insensato suicidio al que aboco a un amigo de la juventud y la estela de culpa; el alcoholismo agresivo; sus dos matrimonios; la perdida de sus manuscritos; el incendio de su casa; su transito por ciudades, prisiones, cantinas y sanatorios; su torturada relacion con medicos, editores, familiares; su misteriosa muerte. En Perseguido por los demonios, Malcolm Lowry ha encontrado esa perla extraña en la historia literaria: una biografia a la altura de su obra.

Malcolm Lowry was the troubled author of Under the Volcano (1947), a brilliant novel about the last day of an alcoholic former British consul on the Mexican Day of the Dead, the manuscript of which Lowry rescued from the flames when his fishermans shack burned down in 1944. Lowrys other books were not always so lucky: his first novel, Ultramarine (1930), was stolen after four years composition and resurrected from a carbon copy; another manuscript, In Ballast to the White Sea, was destroyed in the 1944 fire. An early draft of In Ballast was discovered this century and published in 2014. Lowrys life, like his work, was often lost to chaos; Gordon Bowkers 1994 biography is a masterful account of a life spent adrift.

Gordon Bowker''s biography, written to coincide with Orwell''s centenary, includes material which brings the writer''s life into unfamiliar focus. Bowker writes revealingly about Orwell''s family background; the lasting influence of Eton on his work and character; his superstitious streak and youthful flirtation with black magic; and his chaotic and reckless sex life, which included at least one homoerotic relationship. It highlights the strange circumstances of his first marriage and provides evidence of his experiences in Spain and their nightmarish consequences. It also offers a fresh look at his peculiar deathbed marriage to a woman 15 years his junior.