Martin Amis

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Martin Amis

The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition | 2008 | The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright 2008 Columbia University Press. (Hide copyright information) Copyright

Martin Amis ā´mĬs , 1949-, English novelist; son of Kingsley Amis . The younger Amis, who turned from literary journalism to fiction, invites comparison with his father through his choice of career and style. Often writing satire so bitterly sardonic that it goes far beyond the caustic comedy of his father's fiction, he has exposed the darker aspects of contemporary English society in his novels. Among them are The Rachel Papers (1973), Dead Babies (1975), Money (1984), London Fields (1990), Time's Arrow (1991), The Information (1995), and Yellow Dog (2003). His short-story collections include Heavy Water and Other Stories (1999). Among his nonfiction works are The War against Cliché (2001), a selection of essays, and Koba the Dread (2002), an examination of Stalinism's horrors and the attitudes of Western intellectuals toward the Soviet regime. His subsequent novel House of Meetings (2006) is a powerful fictional memoir that treats similar themes—the monstrous nature of the Soviet gulag and Stalinist atrocities. His collection of essays and stories, The Second Plane September 11 (2008), is collectively a polemic that condemns Islamic fundamentalism and Islamist terrorism.

Bibliography: See his memoir Experience (2000); studies by J. Diedrick (1995, repr. 2004), J. A. Dern (2000), G. Keulks (2003 and, ed., 2006).

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Amis, Martin

World Encyclopedia | 2005 | © World Encyclopedia 2005, originally published by Oxford University Press 2005. (Hide copyright information) Copyright

Amis, Martin (1949– ) British novelist and journalist, son of Kingsley Amis. Amis' debut novel, The Rachel Papers (1974), won the Somerset Maugham Award. His humour is more bawdy and dark than his father's. Money (1984) is a stylish critique of the dehumanizing tendencies of capitalism. Einstein's Monsters (1987) is a collection of five short stories on nuclear war. Time's Arrow (1991) is a complex work on the holocaust. Other novels include Success (1978) and Night Train (1997). In 2000, he published his autobiography Experience.

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Free newspaper and magazine articles

Free Article Big-time Shakespeare and the Joker in the Pack: the intrusive author in Martin Amis's Money.(William Shakespeare)(Critical essay)
Magazine article from: Journal of Narrative Theory; 1/1/2009
Free Article La risa de Martin Amis.
Magazine article from: Proceso; 12/25/2005
Free Article The prose and cons of Martin Amis. (interview with novelist)(Interview)
Magazine article from: Interview; 5/1/1995

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Related articles from newspapers, magazines, and more

Profile: Martin Amis: Putting his affairs in order
Newspaper article from: Scotland on Sunday; 6/7/2009; ; 700+ words ; ...has just befallen author Martin Amis. Britain's literary...or "bounder" - but Amis pere could cast no aspersions on the morality of Amis fils. For the author of...Elizabeth Jane Howard when Martin was just 12. Later, Jane...
Profile Martin Amis: The man who fell to earth
Newspaper article from: The Independent - London; 5/13/2000; ; 700+ words ; ...So the homicidal narrator of Martin Amis's fourth novel, Other People...through the work of Amis junior. Martin Amis has grown ubiquitous over the past...of history. You might say that Martin Amis was born to the principle of redemption...
Martin Amis is up for grabs Media
Newspaper article from: International Herald Tribune; 3/17/2004; ; 700+ words ; ...Tribune 03-17-2004 Martin Amis has a story in The New...old friend Tina Brown, Amis was supposed to import...rumored at the time.''For Martin to move from Random House...And it was hoped that Amis might show up at a lot...
Trials of a literary legatee: Martin Amis, author, on Martin Amis, image.(Originated from Knight-Ridder Newspapers)
Newspaper article from: Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service; 5/17/1995; ; 700+ words ; ...satirical.'' To be sure, Martin Amis, 46, is already the subject...The first entry for Amis is usually awesomely respectful. Son of Sir Kingsley Amis (1922-), one of England...postwar novelists, young Martin was to the genre born...
Interview Martin Amis: `England is great. But America has real chaos, and that's what writers like' Everybody has an opinion about Martin Amis. But in a revealing interview, Britain's most controversial author explains himself to Deborah Orr
Newspaper article from: The Independent - London; 5/19/2000; ; 700+ words ; There's an exchange in Martin Amis's 1995 novel The Information...much." There's a passage in Martin Amis's 2000 memoir, Experience...Nevertheless, here I am, interviewing Martin Amis, for the purpose of publicising...
Review: Books: The new model Martin Amis Do these memoirs signal a complete break with the novelist's past? wonders Ian Hamilton
Newspaper article from: The Sunday Telegraph London; 5/21/2000; ; 700+ words ; Experience by Martin Amis Jonathan Cape, pounds 18, 401 pp pounds 15 (free p&p) 0870...Heroes and The Wit and Wisdom of Prince Philip - was My Struggle by Martin Amis. Martin Amis at the time had published two or three amusing novels and...
Martin Amis's memoirs.(Review)
Magazine article from: The Economist (US); 5/27/2000; 700+ words ; ...ties that bind EXPERIENCE. By Martin Amis. Talk Miramax Books/Hyperion...famous and his father is famous, Martin Amis assumes, in his memoirs, that...s feelings with his "rude" (Martin Amis's mother's word) articles...
LITERARY ENFANT TERRIBLE BRITAIN'S MARTIN AMIS ADDS A STRONG YOUNG VOICE TO CONTEMPORARY FICTION
Newspaper article from: The Boston Globe; 6/9/1987; ; 700+ words ; ...Looking a little like a well-bred James Dean, writer Martin Amis is rolling his own cigarettes in the posh, brass...by his contemporaries. Son of the novelist Kingsley Amis, Martin Amis had a wide swath cut before him by his father's literary...
Martin Amis' fading career, more bashing of terror war.(BOOKS)(LETTER FROM LONDON)
Newspaper article from: The Washington Times; 9/28/2003; 700+ words ; ...news the other day. It seems that Martin Amis attended the launch for Madonna...The English Roses." But when Mr. Amis threw a party to mark the publication...first place. Yet it is a sign of Mr. Amis' faltering reputation that the item...
Books: Gob's gift to women Experience By Martin Amis, Cape pounds 18; If only Martin Amis had revealed less about his teeth and more about his love affairs.
Newspaper article from: The Independent - London; 5/28/2000; ; 700+ words ; In writing this memoir, Martin Amis appears to have set his sights on...writer that this is an autobiography, Amis is curiously reticent about himself...ever learning very much about who Martin Amis is, or what he has done with the...

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