WRITER

Lawrence Durrell

1912 - 1990

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Lawrence George Durrell (; 27 February 1912 – 7 November 1990) was an expatriate British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer. He was the eldest brother of naturalist and writer Gerald Durrell. Born in India to British colonial parents, he was sent to England at the age of 11 for his education. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Lawrence Durrell has received more than 3,331,123 page views. His biography is available in 44 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 43 in 2019). Lawrence Durrell is the 674th most popular writer (up from 758th in 2019), the 84th most popular biography from India (up from 99th in 2019) and the 13th most popular Indian Writer.

Lawrence Durrell is most famous for his "Alexandria Quartet," a series of four novels set in Alexandria, Egypt.

Memorability Metrics

  • 3.3M

    Page Views (PV)

  • 64.60

    Historical Popularity Index (HPI)

  • 44

    Languages Editions (L)

  • 5.56

    Effective Languages (L*)

  • 3.39

    Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Notable Works

Nunquam
Mountolive
Justine
The black book
Fiction
Durrell's third work, the original angry young novel, was first published by his good friend and long-time correspondent Henry Miller as the first title in the short-lived "Villa Seurat" imprint of the Paris-based Obelisk Press. Unpublishable by the more staid (and censored) presses across the Channel, no work better captures the anguish and death-consciousness of a Europe about to plunge, once again, into cataclysmic war and destruction. The Black Book first saw print in 1938.
The Greek Islands
Clea
Fiction
Clea is the fourth book of Lawrence Durrell's tetralogy, The Alexandria Quartet, whose first three parts include Justine, Balthazar, and Mountolive. Clea adds to the quartet a temporal dimension. The love story it tells parallels the process of artistic creation; it concludes like a symphony, announcing the eternal awakening of the heraldic universe, in which the reader also participates. As Pursewarden states, "the reader is the poet; we are all poets: the statue must come away from the awkward marble block that shelters it and begin to live."

Among WRITERS

Among writers, Lawrence Durrell ranks 674 out of 7,302Before him are Theodore the Studite, Matilde Camus, H. L. Mencken, Carlo Gozzi, Douglas Adams, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. After him are Marie de France, Maurice Blanchot, Sei Shōnagon, Bernard Gui, André Chénier, and Novatian.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1912, Lawrence Durrell ranks 29Before him are Gene Kelly, Adolf Galland, Sergiu Celibidache, Robert Doisneau, James Callaghan, and Konrad Emil Bloch. After him are Karl Malden, Edward Mills Purcell, Juan Pujol García, Leonid Kantorovich, Maria Mandl, and Alois Brunner. Among people deceased in 1990, Lawrence Durrell ranks 21Before him are Sergei Parajanov, Pavel Cherenkov, Yun Posun, Miguel Muñoz, John Bowlby, and Tunku Abdul Rahman. After him are Bruno Bettelheim, Ilya Frank, Robert Hofstadter, Sandro Pertini, Jacques Demy, and Keith Haring.

Others Born in 1912

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Others Deceased in 1990

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In India

Among people born in India, Lawrence Durrell ranks 84 out of 1,861Before him are Paramahansa Yogananda (1893), Satyendra Nath Bose (1894), Sher Shah Suri (1486), Samudragupta (335), Ramana Maharshi (1879), and Rajendra Prasad (1884). After him are Nathuram Godse (1910), Pervez Musharraf (1943), Bindusara (-320), Pete Best (1941), Ram Mohan Roy (1772), and Varāhamihira (505).

Among WRITERS In India

Among writers born in India, Lawrence Durrell ranks 13Before him are Tulsidas (1532), Ghalib (1797), Savitribai Phule (1831), Meera (1498), Premchand (1880), and William Makepeace Thackeray (1811). After him are Sarojini Naidu (1879), Basava (1134), Ahmed Deedat (1918), Tukaram (1608), Vātsyāyana (300), and Bankim Chandra Chatterjee (1838).