The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (Panther Books) - Softcover

Sillitoe, Alan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0586065032 ISBN 13: 9780586065037

Publisher: Flamingo, 1985

Synopsis

Sillitoe's portrayal of the mind of an incorrigible rebel. By the author of "Saturday Night, Sunday Morning", "Snowstop", "The Open Door", "Life Goes On", "The Storyteller" and "Last Loves".

About this title

From the Back Cover

Smith is an incorrigible and defiant young rebel, inhabiting a no-man's land of institutionalised Borstal. Watched over by a phlegmy sunlight, as his steady jog-trot rhythm transports him over an unrelenting, frost-bitten earth, he wonders why, for whom and what he is running.

The film of the story, starring Tom Courtenay and Michael Redgrave, has cult status.

Evocative, realistic and superbly written, the other stories in this collection introduce us to, among others: the war-veteran Uncle Earnest who resorts to the oblivion of the beer pump to fill the passage of empty, loveless days; the school teacher Mr Raynor who relies on voyeurism to reward his exasperated, solitary existence.

"Sillitoe writes with tremendous energy, and his stories simply tear along."
DAILY TELEGRAPH

"All the imaginative sympathy in the world can't fake this kind of thing. It must have been lived in, seen, touched, smelled: and we are lucky to have a writer who has come out of it knowing the truth, and having the skill to turn that truth into art."
NEW STATESMAN

"Graphic, tough, outspoken, informal."
THE TIMES

"A beautiful piece of work, confirming Sillitoe as a writer of unusual spirit and great promise."
GUARDIAN

"A major writer who ought to be read."
MALCOLM BRADBURY

About the Author

Alan Sillitoe was born in 1928 and left school at 14 to work in various factories. He began writing after four years in the RAF, and lived for six years in France and Spain. 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.

Edition details

• Publisher: Flamingo
• Publication date: 1985
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0586065032
• ISBN 13: 9780586065037
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 176