Angus Wilson
(1975 Chair)
- Prizes judged
Angus Wilson was a novelist and short story writer, a founder of the fabled creative writing MA at the University of East Anglia, and one of England's first openly gay authors.
Wilson’s early forays into working life included spells as a librarian in the British Library, as a co-manager of a restaurant and, during the war, as a code breaker at Bletchley Park, where he translated Italian naval ciphers. It was after a breakdown there that his therapist suggested he tried writing. Initially, some libraries refused to stock his books on account of his depictions of homosexuality but, with Anglo-Saxon Attitudes (1956) especially, he soon rose to prominence rather than simply notoriety. Although he was a republican, he happily accepted a knighthood in 1980.