Tom Sharpe | British author, 85
Tom Sharpe, 85, a late-blooming British writer known for his riotously satirical novels about misguided characters ensnarled in preposterous circumstances, died Thursday in Llafranc, Spain, where he lived. His Spanish publisher, Anagrama, confirmed his death to the Associated Press. He had complications from diabetes.
Tom Sharpe, 85, a late-blooming British writer known for his riotously satirical novels about misguided characters ensnarled in preposterous circumstances, died Thursday in Llafranc, Spain, where he lived. His Spanish publisher, Anagrama, confirmed his death to the Associated Press. He had complications from diabetes.
Mr. Sharpe, a onetime teacher and photographer who was briefly imprisoned in South Africa after one of his plays critical of apartheid was produced in London, turned to writing comic fiction in his 40s. During the next 40 years, he published 19 satirical novels, many of them bestsellers, that spoofed British education, politics, and social customs.
His work was sometimes described as combining the comic fiction of Evelyn Waugh and Kingsley Amis with the madcap, absurdist humor of Monty Python.
- Washington Post