TOM STOPPARD: A Life

Leading literary biographer Hermione Lee presents a unique portrait of the great playwright Tom Stoppard, drawing on long conversations and time spent with him in rehearsal rooms, as well as unprecedented access to private archives and over 100 interviews with family, friends and stars of stage and screen. The book tracks him from his family's escape from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia through his leap to fame with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, marriages and fatherhood, worldwide travels and his amazing flow of work for theatre, film and radio. There are countless interviews with figures ranging from Felicity Kendall to John Boorman and Trevor Nunn, to Steven Spielberg and long exploratory conversations with Stoppard himself. It tracks his Czech origins and childhood in India to every school and home he has ever lived in, every piece of writing he has ever done, every play and film he has ever worked on in the story of a complex, elusive and private man whose plays are full of wit, verbal dexterity and addressing cerebral topics. Packed with names from the mid 20th century arts and literary scene, this is an intellectual and brilliantly detailed biography with chapters about his wife Miriam, Prisoners of Conscience, Script Doctor, Sir Tom, OM and the Eightieth Year among them and a Stoppard family tree. A monumental 977 pages, 24 pages of photos including colour and of actors such as Sinéad Cusack and a lampooning Private Eye cartoon from 2017.