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Untold Stories
Alan Bennett, Faber & Faber/Profile
Sunday
Telegraph
Untold Stories is Alan Bennett’s first collection
of prose since Writing Home and takes in all his
major writings over the last ten years. The title piece is
a poignant family memoir with an account of the marriage
of his parents, the lives and deaths of his aunts and the
uncovering of a long-held family secret. Also included are
his much-celebrated diaries for the years 1996-2004, as well
as essays, reviews, lectures and reminiscences ranging from
childhood trips to the local cinema and a tour around Leeds
City Art Gallery to reflections on writing, honours and his
Westminster Abbey eulogy for Thora Hird. At times heartrending
and at others extremely funny, Untold Stories is
an unforgettable anthology.
Alan Bennett was born in Leeds in May 1934. Bennett has
been one of our leading dramatists since the success of Beyond
the Fringe in the 1960s. His television series Talking
Heads has become a modern-day classic, as have many
of his works for the stage, including Forty Years On, The
Lady in the Van, A Question of Attribution, The Madness of
George III (together with the Oscar-nominated screenplay The
Madness of King George) and an adaptation of The
Wind in the Willows. His most recent play, The History
Boys, won the Evening Standard and Critics’ Circle
Awards for Best Play, the Laurence Olivier Award for Best
New Play and the South Bank Award. He divides his time between
London and Yorkshire.
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