Thwaite, Anthony Simon

(1930- )

   Born in Chester, he was evacuated during the Second World War to relations in the United States, and after the war, and National Service, he read English at Christ Church, Oxford. His career includes posts in Libya, Japan and Kuwait; Henfield Writing Fellow at the University of East Anglia; literary editor of the Listener, New Statesman, and co-editor of Encounter; and producer for BBC Radio. Together with Andrew Motion (see entry) he is literary executor of the literary estate of Philip Larkin (see entry) and is a former director of the London publishers André Deutsch. He was poet in residence at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, in 1992. Hull Unversity awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1989, and he was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 1990. He lives in Norfolk, England, with his wife, Ann Thwaite, the biographer and children's book writer. Some of his recent poetry publications: A Portion for Foxes, 1977. Victorian Voices, 1980. Poems 1953-1988, 1989. Selected Poems 1956-1996, 1997. A Different Country: New Poems, 2000. Some of his poems: "Ali Ben Shufti," "Arabic Script," "At Birth," "Simple Poem," "Sunday Afternoon," "Switzerland."

   Sources: Biography of Anthony Simon Thwaite: British Council Arts (http://www.contemporarywriters.com). Modern Ballads and Story Poems. Charles Causley, ed. Franklin Watts, 1965. The National Portrait Gallery. (www.npg.org.uk). New Poets of England and America. Donald Hall and Robert Pack, eds. World, 1962. Poems-Fourth Edition: The Wadsworth Handbook and Anthology. C.F. Main and Peter J. Seng, eds. Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1978. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Oxford Book of Travel Verse. Kevin Crossley-Holland, ed. Oxford University Press, 1986. The Oxford Book of Twentieth-Century English Verse. Philip Larkin, ed. Oxford University Press, 1973. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. The Penguin Book of Japanese Verse. Geoffrey Bownes and Anthony Thwaite, eds. Penguin Books, 1964. Who's Who. London: A & C Black, 2005.