Lawrence George Durrell was born February 27, 1912, in Jullundur, India, the child of English railway engineer Lawrence Samuel Durrell and his wife Louisa Florence Dixie, both of whom had been born on the subcontinent themselves. Although the young Durrell was banished to school in England in 1923, the milieu in which he grew up—a rich mixture of Indian and British colonial elements—would not only color his attitudes and philosophical preoccupations but also influence his literary tastes. In Durrell's words, Rudyard Kipling's
Kimwas his family's “bedside book.”
Expecting that England would resemble something out of Robert Smith Surtees, another childhood favorite, Durrell was profoundly disappointed. “That mean, shabby little island . . . tried to destroy anything singular and
2005 words
Citation: Koger, Grove. "Lawrence Durrell". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 08 November 2000 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=1362, accessed 25 November 2024.]
