The Light as It Grows Dark
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The Light as It Grows Dark
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See moreA collection of the final poems from beloved Australian writer Clive James.
Beautiful and deeply meditative poems on illness, ageing, legacy and death from one of Australia's finest writers.
Following a terminal diagnosis and a confrontation with his approaching death, Clive James began to write furiously. Collected together for the first time in The Light as It Grows Dark, the poems which resulted from this unexpected late flowering address memory, ill health, ageing and legacy.
James at all times admits fear and refuses sentiment, meditating not only on the end of his life, but on the end of the writer's life, one lived, by necessity, half in retrospect. 'Look hard at this', he advises in one poem, 'you should do your best to give / All your attention now.' Elsewhere, the refrain of the title poem echoes as a snatch of memory remembered at the end: 'The light as it grows dark has come for you / to comfort you . . . Your life has turned to look you in the face.'
Equally solemn and good-humoured, The Light as It Grows Dark is a moving and magisterial work of consolation in the tradition of Seneca, and a capstone to James's extraordinary career.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9781037406478
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Format: Hardback
Date Published: 08 October 2026
Country: United Kingdom
Imprint: Macmillan
Audience: General / adult
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 15.0mm
Width: 141.0mm
Height: 208.0mm
Weight: 234g
Pages: 128
About the Author
Clive James was the author of more than forty books. As well as essays, he published collections of literary and television criticism, travel writing, verse and novels, plus five volumes of autobiography, Unreliable Memoirs, Falling Towards England, May Week Was In June, North Face of Soho and The Blaze of Obscurity. As a television performer he appeared regularly for both the BBC and ITV, most notably as writer and presenter of the Postcard series of travel documentaries. He published several poetry collections, including the Sunday Times bestseller Sentenced to Life, and a translation of Dante's The Divine Comedy, which was also a Sunday Times bestseller. In 1992 he was made a Member of the Order of Australia and in 2003 he was awarded the Philip Hodgins memorial medal for literature. He held honorary doctorates from Sydney University and the University of East Anglia. In 2012 he was appointed CBE and in 2013, an Officer of the Order of Australia. He died in 2019.
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