Alan Hollinghurst: Beautiful Lines and Strangers' Children

Alan Hollinghurst is one of the British novel’s most admired stylists. In the course of his writing career, Hollinghurst has fashioned a unique literary voice at once considered, ruminative and hauntingly affective. Clever and provocative, Hollinghurst’s fiction tackles the most compelling existential questions – identity, sex, politics, history and aesthetics.

Alan Hollinghurst’s latest two novels have propelled him into the literary hall of fame. His Booker Prize-winning The Line of Beauty, adapted into a major BBC series, satirised the excesses of Thatcherite London. His latest novel, The Stranger’s Child, traces the growing fame of an early-20th century poet across the generations, and in so doing dramatises the development of gay culture in Britain.

In conversation with Michael Williams.

Presenter

Alan Hollinghurst

Alan Hollinghurst’s latest novel is The Stranger’s Child. He is the author of four previous novels, The Swimming-Pool Library, The Folding Star, The Spell and The Line of Beauty.