Bloomsbury to publish first Angela Carter biography

11.11.11 | Benedicte Page - The Bookseller

The first biographical work about novelist Angela Carter will be published in February 2012, the 20th anniversary of her death. The writer—author of such hugely admired and widely studied works as The Company of Wolves, The Bloody Chamber and Nights at the Circus—died from lung cancer at the age of 51.
A Card from Angela Carter (Bloomsbury, h/b, £10) has been written by Observer theatre critic Susannah Clapp, who was Carter's literary executor and a friend of many years standing. The book will be a portrait of Carter loosely structured around the occasional postcards she sent to Clapp over the years.
The cards themselves, many of which are reproduced in the volume, often contain surreal or fantastical images and bear what Bloomsbury describes as "pungent" messages and observations from Carter, such as, for example, that Canada is "like Scandinavia, with liquor". Clapp uses the various postcards as jumping-off points to recall her friendship with Carter, who wrote reviews for her at the London Review of Books, with warm recollections of their literary and other conversations, and of Carter"s work and life.
Bloomsbury describes the book as "intimate, funny, unexpected", saying its unusual approach "will catch this unique artist on the wing" and anticipating substantial coverage in the press.
Clapp is also the author of With Chatwin: Portrait of a Writer, a memoir of another literary friend, Bruce Chatwin.