Byron Rogers – författare

‘ A fine biography… Rogers has done a wonderful job’ Daily TelegraphJ. L. Carr was the most English of Englishmen: headmaster of a Northamptonshire school, cricket enthusiast and campaigner for the conservation of country churches. But he was also the author of half a dozen utterly unique novels, including his masterpiece, A Month in the Country, and a publisher of some of the most eccentric – and smallest – books ever printed.Byron Roger’ s acclaimed biography reveals an elusive, quixotic and civic-minded individual with an unswerving sympathy for the underdog, who led his schoolchildren through the streets to hymn the beauty of the cherry trees and paved his garden path with the printing plates for his hand-drawn maps, and whose fiction is quite remarkably autobiographical. Much more than the life of a thoroughly decent man, The Last Englishman is a comic and touching anatomy of the best kind of Englishness.‘ Conveying the significance of the author of Carr’ s Dictionary of Extraordinary Cricketers to anyone unfamiliar with his books, or what may now fairly be called his myth, was always going to be difficult. Somehow, Roger’ s has managed it’ D. J. Taylor, Sunday Times‘ A great success, and more life-affirming than F. R. Leavis’ s entire output’ Independent on Sunday

Byron Rogers’ biography of Wales’ s national poet and vicar, R.S. Thomas has been hailed as a ‘ masterpiece’ , even as a work of ‘ genius’ , by reviewers from Craig Brown to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Within someone considered a wintry, austere and unsociable curmudgeon, Rogers has unearthed an extremely funny story – ‘ riotously’ so, in Rowan Williams’ words. Thomas is widely considered as one of the twentieth-century’ s greatest English language poets. His bitter yet beautiful collections on Wales, its landscape, people and identity, reflect a life of political and spiritual asceticism. Indeed, Thomas is a man who banned vacuum cleaners from his house on grounds of noise, whose first act on moving into an ancient cottage was to rip out the central heating, and whose attempts to seek out more authentically Welsh parishes only brought him more into contact with loud English holidaymakers.To Thomas’ s many admirers this will be a surprising, sometimes shocking, but at last humanising portrait of someone who wrote truly metaphysical poetry.

Byron Rogers’ biographies of the maverick literary figures J. L. Carr and R.S. Thomas drew dazzling critical acclaim from both fans and reviewers. His singular insight into the lives of these men was undoubtedly derived from Rogers’ own bizarre, whimsical disposition. For such a wildcard as Byron Rogers, the search to deliver a suitable encore could only lead one place: himself.The story of Me: The Authorised Biography begins several years ago, when the author started receiving letters forwarded to him by his then-employer, the Daily Telegraph Magazine. But these weren’ t the usual readers’ letters. These were passionate, erotic love letters. They were also from women he’ d never met. But they seemed to know all about him, the illustrious journalist… Rogers’ quest to find out about this other Mr Rogers – not your normal kind of imposter, but one who did you the double-edged favour of spreading far and wide your undeserved reputation as a sexual voyageur – is what sets off this strange and hilarious memoir. With seemingly nothing else for it, Byron embarks on a journey to track down this talented imposter and learn his startling fate. The result is this uncategorisable and wonderful book – part hilarious, wistful and outrageous memoir, part detective story. Me is one of the most charming and certainly one of the oddest, memoirs you’ ll ever read.