Discipline: Literature

John Wain

Discipline: Literature
Region: Oxford, UK
MacDowell Fellowships: 1958
More: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wain
John Wain (1925-1994) wrote his first novel, Hurry on Down in 1953: a comic picaresque story about an unsettled university graduate who rejects the standards of conventional society. Other notable novels include Strike the Father Dead (1962), a tale of a jazzman's rebellion against his conventional father, and Young Shoulders (1982), winner of the Whitbread Prize, the tale of a young boy dealing with the death of loved ones. Wain was also a prolific poet and critic, with critical works on fellow Midland writers Arnold Bennett, Samuel Johnson (for which he was awarded the 1974 James Tait Black Memorial Prize), and William Shakespeare. Among the other writers about whom he wrote are the Americans Theodore Roethke and Edmund Wilson. He himself was the subject of a bibliography by David Gerard.

Studios

Garland

John Wain worked in the Garland studio.

Marian MacDowell and friends originally named this studio in memory of Anna Baetz, the nurse who helped care for Edward MacDowell in the waning years of his life. With generous support from the Garland family, the studio was renovated in 2013 and renamed the Peter and Mary Garland Studio. The inward opening, diamond-pane windows were replaced…

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