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August 7, 2008


Simon Gray (October 21, 1936 to August 7, 2008) was an English playwright. His many plays are better known in the UK, but he is highly regarded as a writer. Harold Pinter directed many of them. He also taught English for 20 years at the University of London.

His memoirs add up to 8 volumes and were published before his death. Here is a list of just the memoirs Simon Gray wrote:

Memoirs An Unnatural Pursuit and Other Pieces,(1985)
How's that for Telling 'em, Fat Lady?, (1988)
Fat Chance, (1995)
Enter A Fox, (2001)
The Smoking Diaries, (2004)
The Year of the Jouncer, (2006)
The Last Cigarette: Smoking Diaries, (2008)
Coda, (2008)

A Greek island named Spetses figures in the memoirs. Here is a feature of this locale:

"[The] distinction between a cat and a rat is a fine one in Spetses. The inhabitants would treat the cats like rats if there were no rats, and perhaps many of the cats behave accordingly." 

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography includes this summary of Simon Gray's significance:

Gray didn't moralize in his plays or his diaries: 'The moral is: you can learn nothing from experience, at least in my experience'. That may be true, but there were few who wrote about their experience with such honesty, self-knowledge, and, above all, such wit. The moral impulse at the heart of all his work was derived from this: the fault lies not in systems or societies or institutions but in ourselves alone. The success of the diaries brought about a reassessment of his plays. His extraordinarily fertile output came to be regarded not as a talent spreading itself thinly but as a writer whose prolific nature-like Dickens's-was part of his genius. Recognition came with the BAFTA writer's award in 1990 and a CBE in 2005 for services to drama and literature.


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