7.4 /10 1 Votes7.4
Preceded by Spirit of Progress Genre Novel | 3.7/5 Goodreads Publication date 2013 Pages 278 Originally published 2013 Page count 278 ISBN 9780732291204 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Publisher Fourth Estate, Australia Similar Steven Carroll books, Novels | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
A World of Other People (2013) is a novel by Australian author Steven Carroll. It was the joint winner of the 2014 Prime Minister's Literary Awards.
Contents
Plot summary
The novel uses T. S. Eliot's poem "Little Gidding" from Four Quartets as a starting point. The time is 1941 and London is experiencing The Blitz. Iris, a young civil servant, has volunteered to be an aircraft spotter on a building in Russell Square. Another spotter is Eliot himself, as the building is the headquarters of the publishing house, Faber & Faber. Late one night the pair witness the crash of a British Wellington, and Eliot goes on to write his poem utilising this incident. At the initial public reading of the poem, Jim, the pilot of the crashed aircraft, happens to be in the audience and recognises his accident being depicted in the poem.