Alan Sillitoe
Series 3: Episode 17 - the author on his republished book, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
Alan Sillitoe was born in 1928, and left school at fourteen to work in various factories until becoming an air traffic control assistant with the Ministry of Aircraft Production in 1945. He enlisted in May 1946 into the RAFVR, and spent two years on active service in Malaya as a wireless operator. At the end of 1949, he was invalided out of the service with a hundred percent disability pension.
His first stories were printed in the ‘Nottingham Weekly Guardian’. In 1958 ‘Saturday Night and Sunday Morning’ was published and ‘The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner’, which won the Hawthornden prize for Literature, came out the following year. Both these books were made into films.
Further works include ‘Key to the Door', The Ragman’s Daughter’ and ‘The General’ (both also filmed), ‘The William Posters Trilogy, A Start in Life, Raw Material, The Widower’s Son ‘- as well as eight volumes of poetry and ‘Nottinghamshire’, for which David Sillitoe took the photographs. His latest novels are ‘Her Victory, The Lost Flying Boat, Down From the Hill, Life Goes On, The Open Door, Last Loves, Leonard’s War,’ and ‘Snowstop’. He has also published his ‘Collected Stories’ and his autobiography, ‘Life Without Armour’.
He lives with his wife, the poet Ruth Fairlight, in London.
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
Working all day at a lathe leaves Arthur Seaton with energy to spare in the evenings. A hard-drinking, hard-fighting young rebel, he knows what he wants, and he's sharp enough to get it. Before long, his carryings-on with a couple of married women is local gossip. But then one evening he meets a young girl in a pub, and Arthur's life begins to look less simple! First published in 1958, 'Saturday Night and Sunday Morning' achieved instant critical acclaim and helped to establish Alan Sillitoe as one of the greatest British writers of his generation.
Watch video clip of Alan Sillitoe on The Book Show >>
If you want to read the first chapter of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, visit LoveReading.co.uk.
