Norman Lewis (author)

Norman Lewis (28 June 1908 – 22 July 2003) was an influential British journalist and a prolific author. Best known for his travel writing, he also wrote twelve novels and several volumes of autobiography.

Subjects he explored in his travel writing include life in Naples during the Allied liberation of Italy (Naples '44); Vietnam and French colonial Indochina (A Dragon Apparent); Indonesia (An Empire of the East); tribal peoples of India (A Goddess in the Stones); Sicily and the Mafia (The Honoured Society and In Sicily); and the destruction caused by Christian missionaries in Latin America and elsewhere (The Missionaries).

His newspaper article entitled "Genocide in Brazil" (1969)^[1] prompted the creation of Survival International—an organisation dedicated to the protection of indigenous peoples around the world.

Graham Greene described Lewis as "one of the best writers, not of any particular decade, but of our century".^[2]

Early life

Lewis was born in Forty Hill, Enfield, Middlesex, a suburb of London, and attended Enfield Grammar School. His parents were spiritualists and hoped young Lewis would grow up to become a medium; his father worked as a pharmacist. As a young man, Lewis tried a variety of ways to make a living in the Great Depression of the 1930s, including self-employed wedding photographer, auctioneer, umbrella wholesaler and briefly a motorcycle racer at Harringay Stadium and White City.^[2] For some years during this period, he set up home in Woodberry Down near Manor House in London.^[3]

Lewis's different books give varying accounts of his British Army service in World War II. Jackdaw Cake says he served in the Intelligence Corps in Algiers, Tunisia and Naples in 1942-44; another says he was eventually commissioned as a second lieutenant and served with the 1st King's Dragoon Guards, an armoured regiment in the Italian Campaign. His account of experiences during the Allied occupation of Italy, Naples '44 (1978) was called by The Telegraph "one of the great first-hand accounts of the Second World War."^[2] Shortly after the war he wrote books about Burma, Golden Earth (1952), and French Indochina, A Dragon Apparent (1951), which The Telegraph similarly praised as " the finest record of Indo-China before the devastation wrought by the Vietnam War".^[2]

Tribal societies

Another major concern of Lewis's was the impact of missionary activity on tribal societies in Latin America and elsewhere. He was hostile to the activities of missionaries, especially American evangelicals. This is covered in his book The Missionaries, and several shorter pieces. He frequently said that he regarded his life's major achievement as the worldwide reaction to writing on tribal societies in South America. In 1968, his article "Genocide in Brazil", published in the Sunday Times after a journey to Brazil with the war photographer Don McCullin,^[4] created such an outcry that it led to the creation of the organisation Survival International, dedicated to the protection of first peoples around the world. Lewis later said of this article that it was "the most worthwhile of all my endeavours".^[5]

Writing

Lewis was fascinated by cultures which were little touched by the modern world. This was reflected in his books on travels in Indonesia, An Empire of the East, and among the tribal peoples of India, A Goddess in the Stones.

Lewis wrote several volumes of autobiography, again concerned primarily with his observations of the many places in which he lived at various times, including St Catherine's Island in South Wales near Tenby, the Bloomsbury district of London during World War II, Nicaragua, a Spanish fishing village (Voices of the Old Sea),^[2] and a village near Rome.

Lewis also wrote twelve novels.^[4] Some of these enjoyed significant success at the time of publication, but his literary reputation rests mainly on his travel writing. According to Graham Greene, Lewis was "one of the best writers, not of any particular decade, but of our century."

Family

Lewis's first wife, Ernestina Corvaja,^[2] was a Swiss-Sicilian.^[4] Sicilian life, including the role of the Mafia, was a major theme, which he explored in The Honoured Society (1964) and In Sicily (2000). While never losing sight of the horrors inflicted by the Mafia, his accounts were not sensationalist. They were based on a detailed understanding of Sicilian society, and a deep sympathy with the sufferings of the Sicilian people. The Latin connection encouraged him to travel, resulting in his first book, Spanish Adventure (1935). The marriage had however failed by the start of the Second World War in 1939.^[2] He was briefly married a second time, after the war.^[2]

He died in Saffron Walden, Essex, survived by his third wife, Lesley, and their son, Gawaine, and two daughters, Kiki and Samara, and by a son, Gareth, and daughter, Karen, from his second marriage with Hester, and by a son, Ito, from his first marriage. His son Gareth is also a published writer.^[2]

Lewis said that he believed in "absolutely nothing" and indeed "I do not believe in belief." He did not believe that humanity was making progress.^[6] He talked about "the intense joy I derive from being alive",^[4] and said he was "exceedingly happy".^[6]

Bibliography

See also

• Norman Douglas

References

Further reading

• Julian Evans, Semi-Invisible Man: the Life of Norman Lewis, Jonathan Cape 2008 ISBN 978-0-224-07275-5

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Norman Lewis (author)

• Official website
• Granta: Articles on Lewis