Description

‘Highly readable and elegant’ Spectator

‘Wonderfully done’ Guardian

Lawrence Durrell was unquestionably one of the most distinctive, original and compelling literary figures of his age. From his childhood in India and Burma to his bohemian youth in London and Paris, from his madcap scheme to move his family to Corfu to the formative war years spent in Alexandria – this masterful and richly detailed biography is essential reading to understand the man and the writer.

In Larry, Michael Haag, the world’s foremost expert on the Durrells, brought together his unrivalled knowledge and first-hand meetings with the Durrell family and associates to offer the definitive account of the young Lawrence and the real-life settings and stories that inspired his acknowledged masterpiece, The Alexandria Quartet.

Publisher Review

Praise for Michael Haag:
‘Haag is a romantic pluralist, with an instinctive taste for the esoteric, the independent and the defeated; and a corresponding distrust of victors and orthodoxies * TLS * Family stories are worth telling, and this one is fascinatingly put together by Michael Haag… An absolutely riveting read * Daily Mail * Haag’s Alexandria goes further than any other book I know to animate the world these people lived and loved * Sunday Times * Ending this haunting book, some readers may want to re-read it at once * Guardian *