Biography and Autobiography: Double ACT (Paperback)

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Tom Stoppard is one of the foremost writers of his generation; a giant of the English stage whose intellectual puzzles are box-office magic and whose personality is as notoriously intriguing as his works. Ira Nadel recounts this eventful life from Stoppard s childhood - escaping the Nazi occupation of the Czech Republic to settle in Britain - to his breakthrough as a writer his first theatrical success as the youngest playwright ever at the National Theatre and his subsequent rise to the West End and international eminence. This portrait explores Stoppard s past and present friendships and partnerships - with Kenneth Tynan Peter O Toole Trevor Nunn and Felicity Kendal among many others - and also the human rights work of his more recent years. It shows how Stoppard s life imitates his art and vice versa: the multiple identities of the plays reflecting his multi-layered past and teh apparent contradictions of his life giving rise to dramatic works that elegantly and insistently exploe the shifting nature of reality.