Bill Hopkins (novelist)
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Bill Hopkins | |
|---|---|
| Born | Bill Hopkins 5 May 1928 |
| Died | 6 May 2011 (aged 83) |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Nationality | British |
| Period | 20th century |
| Literary movement | Angry young men |
Bill Hopkins (5 May 1928–6 May 2011) was a Welsh novelist and journalist who has been grouped with the angry young men.
Work
Hopkins's one published novel is a philosophical thriller, The Divine and the Decay (London, MacGibbon and Kee, 1957). The novel "had an antagonistic reception."[4] Graham Hough of Encounter called it "an adolescent power-fantasy, extremely shoddily written" and expressed surprise that "even the naivest masturbations of the most unhappy young man should be able to take this openly Fascist form."[5] In response, the publisher voluntarily recalled and pulped copies of the work.[6] The novel was reprinted in 1984 under the title The Leap, with an introduction by Colin Wilson and a new preface by Hopkins.
Hopkins was also the author of "Ways Without Precedent", an essay included in Declaration, edited by Tom Maschler (London, MacGibbon & Kee, 1957), an anthology of non-fiction pieces by writers identified as Angry Young Men and Women, and "Aiming for a Likeness", his contribution to Colin Wilson: A Celebration (1988), in which he recalls how he arranged a meeting between Wilson and the portrait and fresco painter Pietro Annigoni.[7]
Hopkins has been grouped with the authors Colin Wilson and Stuart Holroyd, with whom he shared a house in London in the late 1950s.[8]
Later life
In the mid-1980s, Hopkins edited and published The Monitor (originally titled The Arab Monitor), employing artist Cliff G. Hanley to design the covers. This was a news magazine focused on the Middle East.
He was survived by his German-born wife, Carla Hopkins, who owns the antiques store they ran together for many years, and one of his sisters, Mary Angela Thomas, living in San Francisco, California, plus a nephew and niece.
Portrayals
Hopkins, and his brief political career as a leader of the Spartacan movement, is lampooned in Bernard Kops's debut novel Awake for Mourning (1968).[9][8]
