David Lodge
born Jan. 28, 1935, London, Eng.
English novelist, literary critic, and
editor known chiefly for his satiric novels
about academic life.
Lodge was educated at University College,
London (B.A., 1955; M.A., 1959), and at the
University of Birmingham (Ph.D., 1967). His
early novels, known mostly in England,
include The Picturegoers (1960), about a
group of Roman Catholics living in London;
Ginger, You’re Barmy (1962), Lodge’s
novelistic response to his army service in
the mid-1950s; The British Museum Is Falling
Down (1965), which uses
stream-of-consciousness technique; and Out
of the Shelter (1970), an autobiographical
coming-of-age novel. How Far Can You Go?
(1980; also published as Souls & Bodies) was
well received in both the United States and
Britain and takes a satiric look at a group
of contemporary English Catholics.
Several of Lodge’s novels satirize
academic life and share the same setting and
recurring characters; these include Changing
Places: A Tale of Two Campuses (1975), Small
World: An Academic Romance (1984), and Nice
Work (1988). The latter two were
short-listed for the Booker Prize. Among his
later novels are Paradise News (1991),
Therapy (1995), Thinks… (2001), Author,
Author (2004), and Deaf Sentence (2008).
In addition to writing fiction, Lodge
coauthored the plays Between These Four
Walls (produced 1963) and Slap in the Middle
(produced 1965). His works of literary
theory include Language of Fiction (1966),
The Novelist at the Crossroads, and Other
Essays on Fiction and Criticism (1971; rev.
ed. 1984), Working with Structuralism:
Essays and Reviews on Nineteenth- and
Twentieth-Century Literature (1981), Write
On: Occasional Essays (1986), and After
Bakhtin: Essays in Fiction and Criticism
(1990). The Art of Fiction (1992) reprints
essays from Lodge’s column written for The
Washington Post and the London Independent,
and The Practice of Writing (1996) contains
essays, lectures, reviews, and a diary. He
was made a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et
des Lettres in 1997 and a Commander of the
Order of the British Empire in 1998.
