Home
People
Organizations
Events
Themes
Oral Histories
Learning Resources
Life and Letters Today
‐
Monthly literary review magazine
Other names
Life and Letters (1928–35, 1946–50)
Life and Letters and the London Mercury and Bookman (1945–6)
About
Life and Letters Today was a monthly literary review magazine which published short fiction, essays on cultural issues and book reviews. Several well-known British literary figures, including D. H. Lawrence, Dylan Thomas and Julian Symons, contributed to the magazine. Mulk Raj Anand was a regular contributor of both fiction and reviews, and the work of several other South Asian writers based in Britain was occasionally featured. There were three issues dedicated to Indian writing and featuring a range of short fiction and essays by writers such as Narayana Menon, S. Menon Marath, Iqbal Singh and the Ceylonese J. Vijaya-Tunga, as well as reviews of their work.
Editors: Desmond McCarthy (1928–34), Hamish Miles (1934), R. Ellis Roberts (1934–55), Robert Herring (1935–50).
Contributors: K. Ahmad Abbas, Mulk Raj Anand, George Barker, Nancy Cunard, Cedric Dover, Julian Huxley, D. H. Lawrence, Jack Lindsay, S. Menon Marath, Sarkis Megherian, Narayana Menon, Ajit Mookerjee, Sean O’Casey, B. Rajan, S. Rajandram, S. Raja Ratnam, Keidrych Rhys, Dorothy M. Richardson, Iqbal Singh, Osbert Sitwell, Stevie Smith, Stephen Spender, Alagu Subramaniam, Julian Symons, Dylan Thomas, Fred Urquhart, J. Vijaya-Tunga, Vernon Watkins, Francis Watson.
Life & Letters Today, P.P.5939.bgf, British Library, St Pancras
INDIAN WRITERS IN ENGLAND: Addressing members of the Indian Progressive Writers' Association at the Indian Students' Union on 19th March, Randall Swingler remarked that Indian writers faced a peculiar difficulty in this country – if they wrote well they were rejected by publishers on the ground that they wrote too well. Their success was taken as a slight to British superiority…Indian writers, like most foreign writers in England, found themselves unappreciated by publishers and literary folk in England.
Life and Letters Today 21.20 (April 1939), pp. 3–4
Image credit
© Remaking Britain: South Asian Connections and Networks, 1930s – present
