Paul Ableman
Paul Victor Ableman (13 June 1927 – 25 October 2006) was an English playwright and novelist. He was the writer of much erotic fiction and novelisations, and a freelance writer who turned his hand to non-fiction.
Life and career
Ableman was born in Leeds, Yorkshire to a Jewish family. He was the son of Jack Ableman, a trouser cutter at a tailoring factory, and Gertrude (née Gould), an actress and writer. [1] Following his parents' divorce, he lived with his mother and stepfather, Thurston B. Macauley, a journalist (sometime London correspondent for The New York Times)[2] in New York. After National Service in the Education Corps based in Gibraltar, he read English at King's College, London, but did not take a degree.[3][1]
His experimental novel, I Hear Voices, was published in 1958 by the Olympia Press, and his plays include Green Julia (1966), a witty two-hander in which two young men discuss an absent mistress, and Tests (1966), which collects surreal playlets written for Peter Brook's Theatre of Cruelty.[4]
Ableman lived in Hampstead, London in the United Kingdom. He was married twice: first to Tina Carrs-Brown in 1958- they had one son, then divorced; then to Sheila Hutton-Fox in 1978 until his death in 2006- they had one son.
Ableman was of Russian ancestry on his father's side and German on his mother's side.
Novels
- I Hear Voices (1958)
- As Near As I Can Get (1962)
- Vac (1968)
- The Twilight of the Vilp (1969)
- Bits: Some Prose Poems (1969, poems)
- The Mouth and Oral Sex (1969, psychology)
- Tornado Pratt (1978, novel)
- Porridge: The Inside Story (1979)
- A Killing on the Exchange (1979, novelization of his own miniseries teleplays)
- Shoestring (1979)
- Shoestring's Finest Hour (1980)
- County Hall (1982, novel)
- The Doomed Rebellion (1983)
- Hi De Hi: The Novel (1983)
- Straight Up: The Autobiography of Arthur Daley (1991)
- Waiting for God (1994)
Plays
- Green Julia (1966)
- Tests (playlets) (1966)
- Blue Comedy: Madly in Love, Hawk's Night (1968)
References
- ^ a b Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature, vol. 2, R. Reginald, 1979, pg 789
- ^ "Thurston B. Macauley, A Former Times Correspondent, 95". The New York Times. 28 May 1997. Retrieved 20 August 2020.
- ^ "Paul Ableman". The Independent. 31 October 2006. Archived from the original on 25 May 2022. Retrieved 20 August 2020.
- ^ The Oxford Companion to English Literature, 6th Edition. Edited by Margaret Drabble, Oxford University Press, 2000 p.2
External links
- Obituary in The Independent, 31 October 2006
- Paul Ableman in The Playwrights Database
- Obituary in The Guardian, 8 December 2006
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
| Other | |
- English Jewish writers
- English dramatists and playwrights
- English people of German-Jewish descent
- English people of Russian descent
- Writers from Leeds
- 20th-century English novelists
- 1927 births
- 2006 deaths
- British male dramatists and playwrights
- English male novelists
- 20th-century English dramatists and playwrights
- 20th-century English male writers
- Royal Army Educational Corps soldiers
- 20th-century British Army personnel