Every time he published a new book it was an event.”Ĭritic Michiko Kakutani wrote of Amis in The New York Times in 2000 that “he is a writer equipped with a daunting arsenal of literary gifts: a dazzling, chameleonesque command of language, a willingness to tackle large issues and larger social canvases and an unforgiving, heat-seeking eye for the unwholesome ferment of contemporary life.” “He has been so important and formative for so many readers and writers over the last half-century. “He was the king - a stylist extraordinaire, super cool, a brilliantly witty, erudite and fearless writer and a truly wonderful man,” said Michal Shavit, his editor in England. It's terribly mysterious.”Īmis was a celebrity in his own right, his life often chronicled by London tabloids since his 1973 debut, “The Rachel Papers.” His love life, his change of agents, even his dental work were fodder for stories. “Writing comes from silent anxiety, the stuff you don't know you're really brooding about and when you start to write you realize you have been brooding about it, but not consciously.

“Violence is what I hate most, is what baffles me and disgusts me most,” Amis told The Associated Press in 2012. The Holocaust was the topic of Amis' novel “Time's Arrow” and Josef Stalin's reign in Russia in “House of Meetings,” examples of how his writing explored the dark soul. The film, about a Nazi commandant who lives next to Auschwitz with his family, drew some of the best reviews of the festival. Jonathan Glazer’s adaption of Amis’ 2014 novel “The Zone of Interest” premiered Saturday at the Cannes Film Festival. Among his best-known works were “Money,” a satire about consumerism in London, “The Information” and “London Fields,” along with his 2000 memoir, “Experience.'

Saturday novel by ian mcewan