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The poetry of Clive James has been delighting readers and winning awards for decades. His recent poems looking back over his extraordinarily rich life have brought him an even wider readership; some, such as “Japanese Maple” (first published in The New Yorker), became global news events upon their publication. In this first collected volume of poetry, James makes his own selection from over fifty years’ work in verse: from his early satires to his late poems of valediction, he proves himself to be as well-suited to the intense demands of the short lyric as to those of the comic excursion. Collected Poems places James’s effortless fluency, his breath-taking thematic range, and his emotional power on full display—and will burnish his reputation as one of the most accomplished of our contemporary poets.

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In the 1980s, Clive James found his way into full-time television. In The Blaze of Obscurity, his fifth book of memoir, he delivers the inside story. A hilarious, thoughtful, warts and all account of a life in the public eye.'Clive James is an intellectual as well as a joker, a wise man as well as a wit' – ObserverAs his fame grew, Clive James was never alone – except in the toilet. But there, cubicle walls provided little protection against young men, standing at urinals, talking behind his back:Jesus, he's looking rough.And it's only Monday.Taking it in his stride and batting away accusations of selling out, Clive James was in television for the adventure. And an adventure it was. Rollicking through the end of one century and the beginning of the next, he interviews Hefner and Hepburn, Frank Sinatra and Françoise Sagan, Peter Ustinov ('even his nose could act') and Ronald Reagan. He explores the Las Vegas Grand Prix and the Louisville Kentucky Holiday Inn talent pageant, sends Postcards from Kenya, Shanghai, Tokyo and Dallas, interprets the news, discovers the first bizarre examples of what has come to be known as reality TV, and promotes the career of the irrepressible Margarita Pracatan – all told here with his trademark humour and thoughtful erudition.The Blaze of Obscurity is the fifth and final book of memoir from Clive James.Praise for Clive James:'It is one of the most tender, frank and, above all, funny accounts of growing up I have ever read' –Michael Parkinson'There can't be many writers of my generation who haven't been heavily influenced by Clive James' – Charlie Brooker'A wonderfully witty and intelligent writer' – Verity Lambert

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Clive James, a true polymath, became a generation-defining voice as a broadcaster, a critic, a poet and an author. Among his greatest achievements, his five hilarious, heartwarming books of autobiography are collected now in two volumes: his Complete Unreliable Memoirs.'It is one of the most tender, frank and, above all, funny accounts of growing up I have ever read' – Michael ParkinsonWith his trademark humour and self-deprecating style, Clive James proves a hugely entertaining and erudite guide to his own remarkable life. In this first volume, James explores his childhood adventures in the suburbs of post-war Sydney, his excited arrival in Sixties’ London as a young man and aspiring poet, and his time at Cambridge University where he neglected his studies in favour of poetry, the stage, the music business and the film industry.From a true national treasure, this is a collection of one of the most well-loved and acclaimed memoirs of our times.I was born in 1939. The other big event of that year was the outbreak of the Second World War, but for the moment, that did not affect me . . .'A comic triumph' – London Review of BooksThe Complete Unreliable Memoirs: Volume One collects the first three books of autobiography from Clive James: Unreliable Memoirs, Falling Towards England, and May Week Was In June.The final two books, North Face of Soho and The Blaze of Obscurity, are available in Volume Two.Part of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the best of modern literature.

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With fascinating essays on artists from Louis Armstrong to Walter Benjamin, Sigmund Freud to Franz Kafka and Beatrix Potter to Marcel Proust, Cultural Amnesia is one of the crowning achievements in Clive James's illustrious career as a critic.'One stupendous starburst of wild brilliance' – Simon Schama, historian and author of The Power of ArtA lifetime in the making and containing over one hundred essays, this is a definitive guide to twentieth-century culture. James catalogues and explores the careers of many of the century's greatest thinkers, humanists, musicians, artists and philosophers, with illuminating excursions into the minds of those historical figures – from Sir Thomas Browne to Montesquieu – who paved the way. Altogether, it is an illuminating work of extraordinary erudition. Organised alphabetically by surname, this almanac invites you to share in the connections James draws, and to make your own – whether you read cover-to-cover, or allow curiosity to guide you. From Anna Akhmatova to Stefan Zweig, via Charles de Gaulle, Hitler, Thomas Mann and Wittgenstein, this varied and unfailingly absorbing book is both story and history, public memoir and personal record – and provides a field-guide to the vast movements of taste, intellect, politics and delusion that helped to prepare the times we live in now.'Aphoristic and acutely provocative: a crash course in civilization' – J. M. Coetzee, author of Disgrace'This is a beautiful book' – ObserverPart of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the best of modern literature.

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From the fierce and funny Clive James, this is Britain in the twenty-first century – from wheelie bins to plastic surgery, and from Britain's Got Talent to contemporary art.Between 2007 and 2009, Clive James wrote and presented A Point of View for BBC Radio 4, providing hilarious and profound thoughts on the matters of the moment. In this volume are presented his original pieces – sixty in total – alongside previously unpublished postscripts.Read along with Clive as he delves deep into television, Elizabeth Hurley, Harry Potter, the Olympic Games, Snoop Dogg and cane toads – and plenty more besides.'Irreverent and funny, clever without being cynical and not afraid to flex his wits on anything and everything' – Daily TelegraphClive James (1939–2019) was a broadcaster, critic, poet, memoirist and novelist. His much-loved, influential and hilarious television criticism is available both in individual volumes and collected in Clive James On Television. His encyclopaedic study of culture and politics in the twentieth century, Cultural Amnesia, remains perhaps the definitive embodiment of his wide-ranging talents as a critic. Praise for Clive James:'The perfect critic' – A.O. Scott, New York Times'There can't be many writers of my generation who haven't been heavily influenced by Clive James' – Charlie Brooker 'A wonderfully witty and intelligent writer' – Verity Lambert

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Before James Frey famously fabricated his memoir, Clive James wrote a refreshingly candid book that made no claims to be accurate, precise, or entirely truthful, only to entertain. In an exercise of literary exorcism, James set out to put his childhood in Australia behind him by rendering it as part novel, part memoir. Now, nearly thirty years after it first came out in England, Unreliable Memoirs is again available to American readers and sure to attract a whole new generation that has, through his essays and poetry, come to love James’s inimitable voice.

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Blending the critical essay with poetry, Gate of Lilacs is a collection of verse written by Clive James in response to – and profoundly inspired by – the work of Marcel Proust.'James picks out the characters, the motifs and the moments that set his memory ablaze, just as Marcel was able to conjure such visions from a tisane-infused madeleine' – Literary ReviewOver a period of fifteen years Clive James learned French by almost no other method than reading À la recherche du temps perdu – commonly translated as In Search of Lost Time, or Remembrance of Things Past. Then he spent half a century trying to get up to speed with Proust's great novel in two different languages. Gate of Lilacs is the unique product of James's love of and engagement with Proust's masterpiece. With À la recherche du temps perdu, Proust, in James's words, 'followed his creative instinct all the way until his breath gave out', and now James has done the same. In Gate of Lilacs, James, a brilliant critical essayist and poet, has blended the two forms into one.I had always thought the critical essay and the poem were closely related forms . . . If I wanted to talk about Proust's poetry beyond the basic level of talking about his language – if I wanted to talk about the poetry of his thought – then the best way to do it might be to write a poem.In the end, if À la recherche du temps perdu is a book devoted almost entirely to its author's gratitude for life, for love, and for art, this much smaller book is devoted to its author's gratitude for Proust.Clive James (1939–2019) was a broadcaster, critic, poet, memoirist and novelist. His acclaimed poetry includes the collection Sentenced to Life and a translation of Dante's The Divine Comedy, both Sunday Times bestsellers. His passion for and knowledge of poetry are distilled in his book of criticism on the subject, Poetry Notebook, and, written in the last year of his life, his personal annotated anthology of favourite poems, The Fire Of Joy. Praise for Clive James:'He will be seen, I think, as one of the most important and influential writers of our time' – Bryan Appleyard, Sunday Times'Wise, witty, terrifying, unflinching and extraordinarily alive' – A.S. Byatt, critic and author of Possession: A Romance'Clive James is a true poet' – Peter Porter, London Review of Books

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The second instalment of his famed unreliable memoirs, Falling Towards England sees Clive James set sail for London – a long way from the acclaimed author, poet and broadcaster he would one day become . . .'A comic triumph' – Ian Hamilton, London Review of BooksWaving goodbye to Sydney, Clive James arrives in 1960s England with nothing much besides the clothes on his back, in search of fame and fortune. Idealistic and uncompromising, if short on cash, he plans to get a low-paying menial job by day and compose poetical masterpieces by night. London is beginning to swing, but our hero is flat broke. The menial job proves elusive, with steady employment as hard to find as a room of his own.In a succession of more or less unsatisfactory digs, which include a bedsit, a barge, and a large paper bag, he attempts to stay warm, knuckle down, practise the Twist, plan those poetical masterpieces and improve his unsatisfactory wardrobe. Reflecting on these years, Clive is at his erudite and hilarious best.Falling Towards England is the second book of memoir from Clive James. Continue his story with May Week Was In June.

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This international bestseller is an encyclopedic A-Z masterpiece—the perfect introduction to the very core of Western humanism. Clive James rescues, or occasionally destroys, the careers of many of the greatest thinkers, humanists, musicians, artists, and philosophers of the twentieth century. Soaring to Montaigne-like heights, Cultural Amnesia is precisely the book to burnish these memories of a Western civilization that James fears is nearly lost.

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Clive James read, learned and recited poetry aloud for most of his life. In this, the last book he completed before his death, the much-loved poet, broadcaster and author offers a selection of his favourite poems and a personal commentary on each.In the last months of his life, his vision impaired by surgery and unable to read, Clive James explored the treasure-house of his mind: the poems he knew best, so good that he didn't just remember them, he found them impossible to forget. The Fire of Joy is the record of this final journey of recollection and celebration.Enthralled by poetry all his life, James knew hundreds of poems by heart. In offering this selection of his favourites, a succession of poems from the sixteenth century to the present, his aim is to inspire you to discover and to learn, and perhaps even to speak poetry aloud.In his highly personal anthology, James offers a commentary on each of the eighty or so poems: sometimes a historical or critical note on the poem or its author, sometimes a technical point about the poem's construction from someone who was himself a poet, sometimes a personal anecdote about the role the poem played in his own life.Whether you're familiar with a poem or not – whether you're familiar with poetry in general or not – these chatty, unpretentious, often tender mini-essays convey the joy of James's enthusiasm and the benefit of his knowledge. His urgent wish was to share with a new generation what he himself had loved. This is a book to be read cover to cover or dipped into: either way it generously opens up a world for our delight.'Clive James's joyous farewell . . . from Thomas Wyatt to Carol Ann Duffy' – Guardian, Best Poetry of 2020Clive James (1939–2019) was a broadcaster, critic, poet, memoirist and novelist. His acclaimed poetry includes the collection Sentenced to Life and a translation of Dante's The Divine Comedy, both Sunday Times bestsellers.

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The publication of Clive James's Sentenced to Life was a major literary event. Facing the end, James looked back over his life with a clear-eyed and unflinching honesty to produce his finest work: poems of extraordinary power that spoke to our most elemental emotions. Injury Time is its outstanding successor.'James's confrontation with his approaching death is nothing short of inspirational' – Joan Bakewell, IndependentWith more time on the clock than he had anticipated, Clive James was all the more determined to use it wisely – to capture the treasurable moment, and think about how best to live his remaining days – while the sense of his own impending absence grew all the more powerfully acute. In a series of intimate poems – from childhood memories of his mother, to a vision of his granddaughter in graceful acrobatic flight – James declares 'family' to be our greatest blessing. He also writes beautifully of the Australia where he began his life, and where he hopes to 'reach the end'. Throughout Injury Time, James weaves poems which reflect on the consolation and wisdom to be found in the art, music and books which have become ever more precious to him in his last years.Moving, inspirational and unsentimental, Injury Time is as accomplished as any of his works; even at the end, he was in the form of his life.Clive James (1939–2019) was a broadcaster, critic, poet, memoirist and novelist. His acclaimed poetry includes the collection Sentenced to Life and a translation of Dante's The Divine Comedy, both Sunday Times bestsellers. His passion for and knowledge of poetry are distilled in his book of criticism on the subject, Poetry Notebook, and, written in the last year of his life, his personal annotated anthology of favourite poems, The Fire Of Joy. Praise for Clive James:'He will be seen, I think, as one of the most important and influential writers of our time' – Bryan Appleyard, Sunday Times'Wise, witty, terrifying, unflinching and extraordinarily alive' – A.S. Byatt, critic and author of Possession: A Romance'Clive James is a true poet' – Peter Porter, London Review of Books

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A world-renowned media and cultural critic offers an insightful analysis of serial TV drama and the modern art of the small screen Television and TV viewing are not what they once were—and that’s a good thing, according to award-winning author and critic Clive James. Since serving as television columnist for the London Observer from 1972 to 1982, James has witnessed a radical change in content, format, and programming, and in the very manner in which TV is watched. Here he examines this unique cultural revolution, providing a brilliant, eminently entertaining analysis of many of the medium’s most notable twenty-first-century accomplishments and their not always subtle impact on modern society—including such acclaimed serial dramas as Breaking Bad, The West Wing, Mad Men, and The Sopranos, as well as the comedy 30 Rock. With intelligence and wit, James explores a television landscape expanded by cable and broadband and profoundly altered by the advent of Netflix, Amazon, and other “cord-cutting” platforms that have helped to usher in a golden age of unabashed binge-watching.

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Clive James’s renown as an internationally celebrated poet continues to expand, and there is no stronger evidence for this than Nefertiti in the Flak Tower, a collection “steeped in the lessons of Philip Larkin and W.B. Yeats” (London Times). Here, his polymathic learning and technical virtuosity are worn more lightly than ever; the effect is to produce a deep sense of trust into which the reader gratefully sinks, knowing they are in the presence of a master. The most obvious token of that mastery is the book’s breathtaking range of theme: there are moving elegies, a meditation on the later Yeats, a Hollywood Iliad, and odes to rare orchids, wartime typewriters, and sharks—as well as a poem on the fate of Queen Nefertiti in Nazi Germany. Despite the dizzying variety, James’s poetic intention becomes increasingly clear: what marks this new collection is his intensified concentration on the individual poem as a self-contained universe. Poetry is a practice he compares (in “Numismatics”) to striking new coin, and Nefertiti in the Flak Tower is a treasure chest of one-off marvels, with each poem a twin-sided, perfect human balance of the unashamedly joyous and the deadly serious, “whose play of light pays tribute to the dark.”

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“Few people read Poetry any more, but I still wish to write its seedlings down, if only for the lull of gathering: no less a harvest season for being the last time,” writes Clive James in his epic poem, The River in the Sky. What emerges from this lamentation is a soaring epic of exceptional depth and overwhelming feeling, all the more extraordinary given its appearance in an age when the heroic poem seems to have disappeared from contemporary literature. Among James’s many talents is his uncanny ability to juxtapose references to early twentieth-century poets with “offbeat humor and flyaway cultural observations” (Dwight Garner, New York Times), or allusions to the adagio of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony contrasted with references to “YouTube’s vast cosmopolis.” Whether recalling his Australian childhood or his father’s “clean white headstone” in a Hong Kong cemetery, James’s autobiographical epic ultimately helps us define the meaning of life.

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Clive James read, learned and recited poetry aloud for most of his life. In this, the last book he completed before his death, the much-loved poet, broadcaster and author offers a selection of his favourite poems and a personal commentary on each.In the last months of his life, his vision impaired by surgery and unable to read, Clive James explored the treasure-house of his mind: the poems he knew best, so good that he didn't just remember them, he found them impossible to forget. The Fire of Joy is the record of this final journey of recollection and celebration.Enthralled by poetry all his life, James knew hundreds of poems by heart. In offering this selection of his favourites, a succession of poems from the sixteenth century to the present, his aim is to inspire you to discover and to learn, and perhaps even to speak poetry aloud.In his highly personal anthology, James offers a commentary on each of the eighty or so poems: sometimes a historical or critical note on the poem or its author, sometimes a technical point about the poem's construction from someone who was himself a poet, sometimes a personal anecdote about the role the poem played in his own life.Whether you're familiar with a poem or not – whether you're familiar with poetry in general or not – these chatty, unpretentious, often tender mini-essays convey the joy of James's enthusiasm and the benefit of his knowledge. His urgent wish was to share with a new generation what he himself had loved. This is a book to be read cover to cover or dipped into: either way it generously opens up a world for our delight.'Clive James's joyous farewell . . . from Thomas Wyatt to Carol Ann Duffy' – Guardian, Best Poetry of 2020Clive James (1939–2019) was a broadcaster, critic, poet, memoirist and novelist. His acclaimed poetry includes the collection Sentenced to Life and a translation of Dante's The Divine Comedy, both Sunday Times bestsellers.

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Spanning fifty years of work, Collected Poems sees Clive James make his own rich selection from across his exceptional career in poetry.From his debut collection in 1986 to his dazzling achievements in the 2010s, Clive James steadily built his reputation as one of the nation's best-loved and most highly-acclaimed poets. In this selection, made by the author himself, the very best of his talents are on show.From his early satires to heart-stopping valedictory poems, Clive James proves himself to be as well suited to the intense demands of the tight lyric as he is to the longer mock-epic. Included is perhaps amongst his finest works, 'Japanese Maple', a poem which became a global sensation upon its publication in the New Yorker.Collected Poems displays James's fluency and apparently effortless style, his technical skill and thematic scope, his lightly worn erudition and his emotional power; it undoubtedly cements his reputation as one of our most versatile and accomplished writers.'He will be seen, I think, as one of the most important and influential writers of our time' – Bryan Appleyard, Sunday TimesClive James (1939–2019) was a broadcaster, critic, poet, memoirist and novelist. His acclaimed poetry includes the collections Sentenced To Life and Injury Time and a translation of Dante's The Divine Comedy, a Sunday Times bestseller. His passion for and knowledge of poetry are distilled in his book of criticism on the subject, Poetry Notebook, and, written in the last year of his life, his personal annotated anthology of favourite poems, The Fire Of Joy. 

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Erudite and entertaining in equal measure, Somewhere Becoming Rain is a love letter from the much-loved writer Clive James to one of the world’s most cherished poets: Philip Larkin.'This is the finest critic of his generation on the best poet of his lifetime' – The TimesClive James was a life-long admirer of the work of Philip Larkin. Somewhere Becoming Rain gathers all of James's writing on this towering literary figure of the twentieth century, together with extra material now published for the first time.The greatness of Larkin's poetry continues to be obscured by the opprobrium attaching to his personal life and his private opinions. James writes about Larkin's poems, his novels, his jazz and literary criticism; he also considers the two major biographies, Larkin's letters and even his portrayal on stage in order to chart the extreme and, he argues, largely misguided equivocations about Larkin's reputation in the years since his death.Through this joyous and perceptive book, Larkin's genius is delineated and celebrated. James argues that Larkin's poems, adored by discriminating readers for over half a century, could only have been the product of his reticent, diffident, flawed, and all-too-human personality.'A collection to savour two-fold – for the genius of Larkin and the playful erudition of James' – Financial Times

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Erudite and entertaining in equal measure, Somewhere Becoming Rain is a love letter from the much-loved writer Clive James to one of the world’s most cherished poets: Philip Larkin.'This is the finest critic of his generation on the best poet of his lifetime' – The TimesClive James was a life-long admirer of the work of Philip Larkin. Somewhere Becoming Rain gathers all of James's writing on this towering literary figure of the twentieth century, together with extra material now published for the first time.The greatness of Larkin's poetry continues to be obscured by the opprobrium attaching to his personal life and his private opinions. James writes about Larkin's poems, his novels, his jazz and literary criticism; he also considers the two major biographies, Larkin's letters and even his portrayal on stage in order to chart the extreme and, he argues, largely misguided equivocations about Larkin's reputation in the years since his death.Through this joyous and perceptive book, Larkin's genius is delineated and celebrated. James argues that Larkin's poems, adored by discriminating readers for over half a century, could only have been the product of his reticent, diffident, flawed, and all-too-human personality.'A collection to savour two-fold – for the genius of Larkin and the playful erudition of James' – Financial Times

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A single book-length poem, The River in the Sky sees Clive James face up to his final moments of life with all the wisdom, lightly-worn erudition and good humour that defined his extraordinary career.Close to death for a number of years, Clive James wrote about the experience in a series of deeply moving poems. In this volume, we find him in ill health but high spirits. Though his body found him bound to his Cambridge home, his mind was free to roam. On a grand tour of 'the fragile treasures of his life', James is animated by powerful recollections. He presents a flowing stream of vivid images, moving from emotionally resonant personal moments, such as listening to jazz records with his future wife, to unforgettable encounters with all kinds of culture: Beethoven's Ninth Symphony sits alongside 'YouTube's vast cosmopolis'. James shares his passions with enormous generosity, making brilliant, original connections and fearlessly tackling the biggest questions: the meaning of life and how to live it. In the end, what emerges from this autobiographical epic is a soaring work of exceptional depth and feeling.'The River in the Sky is superb, an epic lament, written in late life, filled with exact and moving observations about life and culture' – New York TimesClive James (1939–2019) was a broadcaster, critic, poet, memoirist and novelist. His acclaimed poetry includes the collection Sentenced to Life and a translation of Dante's The Divine Comedy, both Sunday Times bestsellers. His passion for and knowledge of poetry are distilled in his book of criticism on the subject, Poetry Notebook, and, written in the last year of his life, his personal annotated anthology of favourite poems, The Fire Of Joy. Praise for Clive James:'He will be seen, I think, as one of the most important and influential writers of our time' – Bryan Appleyard, Sunday Times'Wise, witty, terrifying, unflinching and extraordinarily alive' – A.S. Byatt, critic and author of Possession: A Romance'Clive James is a true poet' – Peter Porter, London Review of Books

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From Fleet Street to the television, North Face of Soho is the fascinating and hilarious fourth volume of memoir from much-loved author, poet and broadcaster Clive James.'[James] delivers his gags with honed elegance' – Sunday TimesIt is 1968. Newly married, dressed in the style of the times ('a frenzy of bad judgement'), Clive James is leaving the cloistered world of Cambridge academia and setting his sights once again on the lights of literary London.Luckily for him and us, this crack at the big city would go rather better than last time.Still writing songs, directing sketch shows and trying to break into the movie business, with very mixed success, Clive eventually lands a weekly TV column at the Observer, finds his metier and rapidly becomes a household name. Credited with inventing a genre, Clive turns his attention to the previously critically disregarded medium of television to comment on the entire culture. Through the Seventies and early Eighties, from Fleet Street to Hollywood, from Russian department stores to Paris fashion shows, this is the hilarious, entertaining and honest story of a life lived to the full.North Face of Soho is the fourth book of memoir from Clive James. Continue his story with The Blaze of Obscurity.

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It is the middle of the Swinging Sixties, and Clive James doesn't have much to show for it. May Week Was In June is the third hilarious, tender instalment of memoir from the iconic author, poet and broadcaster.'Nobody writes like Clive James' – SpectatorArriving at Cambridge University in a cold October in 1964, the young Clive James has yet to find a footing in the literary world. His move from Sydney and three years of hand-to-mouth existence in London has produced nothing but a handful of unpublished poems. Pembroke College Cambridge offers a way out, if not up . . .Ignoring the curriculum, he throws himself into writing songs, performing and film reviewing. “If something was irrelevant, I could do it.” He takes Footlights to the Edinburgh Fringe, writes for the New Stateman and works on Expresso Drongo, arguably the worst film ever screened at the NFT . He finds a lifelong passion in criticism, continues his poetry, falls in love with Italian art and eventually, in May Week, he marries. These are the years that formed the man Clive James – told with his trademark erudition and humour.May Week Was In June is the third book of memoir from Clive James. Continue his story with North Face of Soho.

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An esteemed literary critic shares his final musings on books, his children, and his own impending death In 2010, Clive James was diagnosed with terminal leukemia. Deciding that “if you don’t know the exact moment when the lights will go out, you might as well read until they do,” James moved his library to his house in Cambridge, where he would “live, read, and perhaps even write.” James is the award-winning author of dozens of works of literary criticism, poetry, and history, and this volume contains his reflections on what may well be his last reading list. A look at some of James’s old favorites as well as some of his recent discoveries, this book also offers a revealing look at the author himself, sharing his evocative musings on literature and family, and on living and dying. As thoughtful and erudite as the works of Alberto Manguel, and as moving and inspiring as Randy Pausch’s The Last Lecture and Will Schwalbe’s The End of Your Life Book Club, this valediction to James’s lifelong engagement with the written word is a captivating valentine from one of the great literary minds of our time.

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Collecting poetry written in the years 2011–2014, Sentenced to Life sees Clive James look back over his extraordinarily rich life with a clear-eyed and unflinching honesty.After falling dangerously ill in 2010, Clive James did not expect to live to see this volume published. But live he did, and these poems see James writing with his insight and energy not only undiminished but positively charged by his situation.There is no sense of self-pity in this collection, which includes the internet sensation ‘Japanese Maple’ and which deals openly with regret, death and his own illness,. With a great breadth of subject matter – taking in Hollywood, travel, art and politics – it is his fascination with humanity that shines through. It is, above all, a celebration of life – all that is treasurable and memorable in our time here.Rich in wisdom and sharp of thought, Sentenced to Life represents a career high point from one of the great literary intelligences of the age.Clive James (1939–2019) was a broadcaster, critic, poet, memoirist and novelist. His acclaimed poetry includes the collection Sentenced to Life and a translation of Dante's The Divine Comedy, both Sunday Times bestsellers. His passion for and knowledge of poetry are distilled in his book of criticism on the subject, Poetry Notebook, and, written in the last year of his life, his personal annotated anthology of favourite poems, The Fire Of Joy. Praise for Clive James:'He will be seen, I think, as one of the most important and influential writers of our time' – Bryan Appleyard, Sunday Times'Wise, witty, terrifying, unflinching and extraordinarily alive' – A.S. Byatt, critic and author of Possession: A Romance'Clive James is a true poet' – Peter Porter, London Review of Books

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The Divine Comedy is the precursor of modern literature, and Clive James’s translation—decades in the making—gives us the entire epic as a single, coherent, and compulsively readable lyric poem. For the first time ever in an English translation, James makes the bold choice of switching from the terza rima composition of the original Italian—a measure that strains in English—to the quatrain. The result is “rhymed English stanzas that convey the music of Dante’s triple rhymes” (Edward Mendelson). James’s translation reproduces the same wonderful momentum of the original Italian that propels the reader along the pilgrim’s path from Hell to Heaven, from despair to revelation.

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‘Finally I realised that I had been practising for this job every time I wrote a quatrain . . . I had spent all this time – the greater part of a lifetime – preparing my instruments.’ The Divine Comedy is the precursor of modern literature, and Clive James’s vivid translation – his life’s work and decades in the making – presents Dante’s entire epic poem in a single song. While many poets and translators have attempted to capture the full glory of The Divine Comedy in English, many have fallen short. Victorian verse translations established an unfortunate tradition of reproducing the sprightly rhyming measures of Dante but at the same time betraying the strain on the translator’s powers of invention. For Dante, the dramatic human stories of Hell were exciting, but the spiritual studies of Purgatory and the sublime panoramas of Heaven were no less so. In this incantatory translation, James – defying the convention by writing in quatrains – tackles these problems head-on and creates a striking and hugely accessible translation that gives us The Divine Comedy as a whole, unified, and dramatic work.

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The most captivating part of perhaps the greatest epic poem ever written, Dante's Inferno still holds the power to thrill and inspire. The medieval equivalent of a thriller, Inferno follows Dante and his faithful guide, Virgil, as they traverse the complex geography of Hell, confronting its many threats, macabre punishments, and historical figures, before reaching the deep chamber where Satan himself resides. Now, in this new translation, Clive James communicates not just the transcendent poetry of Dante's language but also the excitement and terror of his journey through the underworld. Instead of Dante's original terza rima, a form which in English tends to show the strain of composition, James employs fluently linked quatrains, thereby conveying the seamless flow of Dante's poetry and the headlong momentum of the action. As James writes in his introduction, Dante’s great poem "can still astonish us, whether we believe in the supernatural or not. At the very least it will make us believe in poetry."

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