Clive James

Critic, novelist, poet and essayist who after a long and successful TV career now devotes himself to writing.

Clive James is well-known as an essayist and poet, and has published poetry in periodicals all over the world. His books of poetry include Poem of the Year (1983), a verse-diary, Other Passports: poems 1958–1985, a first collection, and The Book of My Enemy (2003). He has released several volumes of his literary criticism and essays, including At the Pillars of Hercules (1979), and From the Land of Shadows (1982). He has written four novels, including the best-selling Brilliant Creatures (1983). His autobiography was released in five volumes, starting with his early years in Australia in Unreliable Memoirs (1985), and concluding with Blaze of Obscurity (2009). His face is well known to the public through his many years of broadcasting work, including hosting the ITV show Clive James on Television, and BBC television shows Saturday Night Clive and Sunday Clive. He has also hosted travel programmes for both the BBC and ITV, and presented the BBC radio show A Point of View. He was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 1992, was awarded the Philip Hodgins Memorial Medal for Literature in 2003, and received the Special Award for Writing and Broadcasting by the Orwell Prize in 2008.