L’écrivain britannique Martin Amis est mort

THE MONDE : Le romancier, mort vendredi à l’âge de 73 ans, avait été classé par le « Times » en 2008 comme l’un des meilleurs écrivains britanniques depuis 1945. Il s’était imposé comme un styliste hors pair, avec une œuvre de critique sociale très radicale.

Martin Amis, dont les romans caustiques, érudits et sombrement comiques ont redéfini la fiction britannique dans les années 1980 et 1990 grâce à leur évaluation acerbe de la culture des tabloïds et de l’excès de consommation, est mort, vendredi 19 mai, à son domicile de Lake Worth, en Floride, à l’âge de 73 ans. Selon les déclarations de son épouse, l’écrivaine et journaliste américaine Isabel Fonseca, au New York Times, il a succombé à un cancer de l’œsophage.

Considéré comme « l’enfant terrible des lettres anglaises », Martin Amis est l’auteur de quinze romans, de mémoires très appréciés (« Experience », en 2000), d’essais et de recueils de nouvelles. C’est avec sa trilogie dite de Londres – « Money : A Suicide Note » (1985), « London Fields » (1990) et « L’Information » (1995) qu’il a obtenu la consécration. » | Le Monde | samedi 20 mai 2023

Martin Amis, Acclaimed Author of Bleakly Comic Novels, Dies at 73: In books like “Money” and “The Information,” he created “a high style to describe low things,” as he put it. He found more renown as a critic, and a measure of unease as his famous father’s son. »

Martin Amis, era-defining British novelist, dies aged 73: The celebrated author of Money and London Fields, whose works defined the 80s and 90s literary scene, died of oesophageal cancer on Friday at his home in Florida »

Martin Amis bemoans England's 'moral decrepitude': This article is more than 12 years old Novelist despairs of country with 'philistine' royal family where 'celebrity is the new religion' and 'all is rotten inside' »

Ann Coulter, Martin Amis | BBC Newsnight

Ann Coulter and Martin Amis discuss the US Election on Newsnight November 2016

Prince Charles Turned His Back on Sir Salman Rushdie over The Satanic Verses 'Because He Thought Book Was Offensive to Muslims'

THE INDEPENDENT: Revelations made by author Martin Amis

Prince Charles turned his back on Sir Salman Rushdie during his fatwa over publication of The Satanic Verses because he thought the book was offensive to Muslims, it has been claimed.

In an interview with Vanity Fair, the author Martin Amis claims that the Prince’s views caused a row at a dinner party after Rushdie was issued with the death sentence by Islamic clerics in 1989. Amis claims that Charles told him that he would not offer support “if someone insults someone else’s deepest convictions”.

Amis attempted to remonstrate with him, but the Prince offered little beyond insisting he would “take it on board”. Rushdie went into hiding for a decade after Iran's late spiritual leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa in 1989 calling for the author's assassination. » | Kunal Dutta | Tuesday, April 15, 2014

World Ruled by Women Would Be a Better Place, Says Martin Amis
THE TELEGRAPH: Martin Amis has declared himself a feminist and claimed that the world would be a better place if every country was ruled by a woman like Angela Merkel.

The author singled out the German chancellor for particular praise as he called for a new era of female-dominated politics.

“I have a dream. I see a day when politics is feminised, where female values move into the public sphere in a way they haven't quite done yet,” he told the audience at the Telegraph Ways With Words literary festival.

“I think there have been 20 female heads of state since the Second World War – some by inheritance, some by widowhood.

"But they have all had to pretend they are tougher than men. That’s why Hillary Clinton said if Iran tries anything she will wipe them off the map. Margaret Thatcher was quite devoid of feminine qualities.

“In an imaginable future, the values of women will rise. I met Angela Merkel and I sensed with her that she did bring certain feminine qualities to bear on the political situation in Germany. I want every country to be ruled by an Angela Merkel.” >>> Anita Singh, Showbusiness Editor | Monday, July 12, 2010

”Some Societies Are Just More Evolved Than Others,” Says Martin Amis
DAILY MAIL: The author Martin Amis has claimed he feels 'morally superior' to Muslim states which are not as 'evolved' as the Western world.

Responding to long-running accusations that he is Islamophobic, Amis launched a fresh invective against the Muslim faith and many of its followers.

He admitted his late father and grandfather had been racist but then claimed radical Muslims were the real racists, misogynists and homophobes.

The 58-year-old defended a proposal he made last year that Muslims be deported and strip-searched in a crackdown on terrorism.

His latest comments came in a TV news interview last night and during the Cheltenham Literature Festival last week.

The Muslim Council of Britain branded them racist and 'shameful'.

In an interview with Jon Snow on Channel Four News, Amis declared: 'I feel morally superior to Islamists, by some distance. I feel an intellectual distance to Islam.

'There are great problems with Islam. The Koran recommends the beating of women.

'The anti-Semites, the psychotic misogynists and the homophobes are the Islamists.'

Days earlier, Amis shocked festivalgoers in Cheltenham with claims that Muslim states are less 'civilised' than Western society.

'Some societies are just more evolved than others,' he said. 'I am not saying these people are genetically incapable of not being terrorists.

'These societies are arming themselves with weapons like the AK47 and blowing people up on buses and Tubes.'

When one member of his audience suggested not all Muslims were terrorists he retorted: 'No one else is doing it. Martin Amis launches fresh attack on Muslim faith saying Islamic states are 'less evolved' (more) By Laura Clark and Tahira Yaqoob

Mark Alexander

Prof Eagleton, the Marxist Who Just Doesn’t Get It, Engages in an Ad Hominem Attack on Martin Amis to Try and Prove His Point
Martin Amis under attack by the Marxist Professor Eagleton
THE TELEGRAPH: A battle has broken out between two of the country's literary titans with one, the prominent Marxist intellectual Terry Eagleton, accusing the other, the novelist Martin Amis, of being Islamophobic.

Prof Eagleton says that Amis has abandoned traditional Western values of liberalism following the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Centre. 

In an introduction to the 2007 edition of his classic book, Ideology: An Introduction, Prof Eagleton attacks the views of "Amis and his ilk" for taking up cudgels against Islam instead of propounding tolerance and understanding.

The attack also extends to Amis's novelist father, the late Kingsley Amis.

Prof Eagleton calls Kingsley Amis "a racist, anti-Semitic boor, a drink-sodden, selfhating reviler of women, gays and liberals".

He adds: "Amis fils has clearly learnt more from him than how to turn a shapely phrase".

Prof Eagleton, a Marxist literary critic for 30 years, has increasingly turned his pen against Left-leaning writers for selling out to the Establishment, but his new introduction reserves special scorn for Amis Jnr, the author of novels such as London Fields and Money.

The spark is a controversial essay written by Amis last year, the day before the fifth anniversary of the bombing of New York's Twin Towers, in which he said that "the Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order".

In The Age of Horrorism, Amis argued that fundamentalists had won the battle between Islam and Islamism.

The novelist suggested "strip-searching people who look like they're from the Middle East or from Pakistan", preventing Muslims from travelling, and further down the road, deportation. Martin Amis essay 'like work of BNP thug' (more) By Nigel Reynolds, Arts Correspondent

Mark Alexander