Hugo Williams | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1942-02-20)20 February 1942 (age 83) Windsor, Berkshire, England |
| Occupation |
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| Language | English |
| Nationality | English |
| Education | Eton College |
| Years active | 1965–present |
| Notable awards |
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| Spouse | Hermine Demoriane (1965–present) |
| Children | 1 daughter |
| Parents | |
| Relatives | Simon Williams (brother) |
Hugo WilliamsFRSL (bornHugh Anthony Mordaunt Vyner Williams on 20 February 1942) is an English poet, journalist and travel writer. He received theT. S. Eliot Prize in 1999 andQueen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 2004.
Williams was born in 1942 inWindsor,Berkshire. He was the eldest child of the actor and playwrightHugh Williams and his second wife, the model, actress and playwrightMargaret Vyner. His brother is the actorSimon Williams. His sister Polly, an actress, died of cancer in 2004 at the age of 54.[1]
Hugh Williams enjoyed success as an actor during the 1930s, but his career waned following his service in the Second World War, during which he sustained injuries. He declared bankruptcy in the early 1950s but the family's fortunes revived when he and his wife began collaborating as playwrights.[2] They found success with the comedyThe Grass is Greener which was first staged in London'sWest End in 1956.[3]
Hugo Williams attendedLockers Park School andEton College.[4] While a student at Eton, he had several poems published in theLondon Magazine.[5]
Williams's early poems were influenced by poets associated withThe Movement, particularlyJohn Wain andThom Gunn.[5] He received anEric Gregory Award for his first book of poems,Symptoms of Loss, which was published in 1965.[6]Philip Larkin included "The Butcher", a poem from this collection, in his 1973 anthologyThe Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse.[7] The poem also attracted the attention of the poet, editor and literary criticIan Hamilton, who became Williams's mentor and "perfect reader".[8] Williams's poems appeared inThe Review andThe New Review, literary magazines edited by Hamilton in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1969,The Review published a pamphlet of Williams's poems as part of a series exemplifying the magazine's "taste for spare, emotionally intense, tip-of-the-iceberg, occasionally gnomic poems".[7]
His second book of poems,Sugar Daddy, appeared in 1970. In 1971, Williams received aCholmondeley Award, which is given annually by theSociety of Authors to "recognise the achievement and distinction of individual poets" chosen "for their general body of work and contribution to poetry".[9] In 1980, for his fourth poetry book,Love-Life, Williams shared theGeoffrey Faber Memorial Prize withGeorge Szirtes. The Faber prize is awarded to "that volume of verse or prose fiction first published originally in this country during the two years preceding the year in which the award is given which is, in the opinion of the judges, of the greatest literary merit".[10]
Williams's style evolved away from "Review-style lyrical spareness" while his subject matter became more personal and intimate in nature, culminating in his 1985 collectionWriting Home, which the poetMick Imlah called a "classic of creative autobiography".[7] In it, according to the poet and criticMichael Hofmann, he made a "complete and unexpected break with the tenets of economy, ceremony, care, melancholy and a kind of Oriental exquisiteness" that had characterized his earlier work and began a "loosening up" that led his later work to "the borderline between poetry and prose" while bringing in "more humour, sex, slapstick, and more of the world".[11] Williams credits his reading ofRobert Lowell'sLife Studies with the change, remarking that he was "well into my career before I started writing about mummy and daddy and all that".[5]Karl Miller, who published many of Williams's poems in theLondon Review of Books during his tenure as editor, wrote in 1995 that his work was most admired for its "directness, naturalness, unencumberedness", whileThe London Magazine in 2014 described the poems inI Knew the Bride as "blessed with a piercing clarity and unfailing readability".[7][12]
Williams's 1999 bookBilly's Rain won theT. S. Eliot Prize, which "is awarded annually to the best new collection of poetry in English published in the UK or the Republic of Ireland".[13] In 2002, Faber published hisCollected Poems, for which he received theQueen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 2004.[14]
Billy's Rain deals with a five-year long love affair.[2] The subjects of later books include the death of his younger sister Polly from cancer (I Knew the Bride) and his experiences undergoingdialysis and a kidney transplant (Lines Off).[15][16]
Williams worked as an editor atThe London Magazine from 1961 to 1970.[7] As a journalist and columnist he has written on theatre forThe Sunday Correspondent (1989–1991), film forHarper's & Queen (1993–1998), popular music forPunch, and television for theNew Statesman (1983–1988), where he was also poetry editor from 1984 to 1993.[6][17]
He was a regular contributor to the "Freelance" column inThe Times Literary Supplement from its beginning in 1988. A collection of his columns was published byFaber and Faber in 1995 asFreelancing: Adventures of a Poet.[18]
His first book of travel writing,All the Time in the World, published in 1966, described his trip around the world at the age of 21, financed by his father in order "to break a trust fund".[5] A second travel book,No Particular Place to Go, appeared in 1981.[17]
Williams has been married to the singer and writerHermine Demoriane since 1965. They have one daughter, Murphy Williams.[5] He bought a house in theIslington district of London in 1966 and has lived there ever since.[17] Williams received a successful kidney transplant in 2014, after undergoingdialysis for several years.[15]
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This list may also include some poetry books:
