Literature
John Arden
John Arden was born in Barnsley, Yorkshire, in 1930. He was educated at King’s College, Cambridge (1950 – 1953) and Edinburgh College of Art (1953 – 1955). After graduating, he worked as an Architectural Assistant in London but left that profession to become a fulltime writer from 1958.
Arden’s stage plays include: Serjeant Musgrave’s Dance: an Unhistorical Parable (1959); The Workhouse Donkey: a Vulgar Melodrama (1963); Armstrong’s Last Goodnight: an Exercise in Diplomacy (1964). Plays of Irish content, written in collaboration with Margaretta D’Arcy, e.g: The Little Gray Home in the West (1972); The Non-Stop Connolly Show (in six parts, 1975); Vandaleur’s Folly (1978).
Radio plays, e.g: The Life Of Man (1956); Pearl (1978); Whose Is The Kingdom? (with Margaretta D’Arcy, in nine parts, 1988); Poor Tom, Thy Horn Is Dry (2004).
Arden’s novels include: Silence Among the Weapons: some events at the time of the failure of a republic (1982. Short-listed for the Booker Prize); Books of Bale, a fiction of history (1988); Jack Juggler and the Emperor’s Whore: seven tall tales for an indecorous toy theatre (1995).
Collections of short stories: Cogs Tyrannic (1992); The Stealing Steps (2003); Gallows (2009).
John Arden won many awards, e.g: Evening Standard Award, 1960; Trieste Festival Award, 1961; PEN Macmillan Silver Pen Award, 1992; V.S.Pritchett Award, 2003.
He also had a distinguished academic career, i.e: Fellow in Playwriting at Bristol University, 1959 – 60; visiting lecturer in Politics & Drama at New York University, 1967; lecturer at the University of California, 1973; writer-in-residence at the University of New England , NSW, Australia, 1975.
He was co-founder of the Corrandulla Arts & Entertainment group, Co. Galway, and the Theatre Writers’ Group UK (subsequently the Theatre Writers’ Union). He lived in Co. Galway from 1962 until his death on 28 March 2012.