Louis de Bernières
Captain Corelli's Mandolin, published in 1994, is a novel by the British writer Louis de Bernières that unfolds against the backdrop of the Italian occupation of a Greek island during the Second World War. The book received the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Overall Best Book, a recognition that brought de Bernières considerable international attention and established the novel as a significant work of English-language fiction.
De Bernières was born in London on 8 December 1954 and holds United Kingdom citizenship. He was educated at Bradfield College before going on to study at the Victoria University of Manchester and De Montfort University. Working across several forms, he has pursued careers as a novelist, poet, screenwriter, and writer more broadly, composing in the English language throughout. His education across these institutions preceded his emergence as a published author, and the range of his occupational identities reflects a literary practice that has not been confined to a single genre or medium.
In addition to the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, de Bernières was awarded a Fellowship of the Royal Society of Literature, an honour granted to writers of demonstrated achievement in English letters. The fellowship places him among a body of writers recognised by one of the United Kingdom's oldest literary institutions. His work as a poet and screenwriter has continued alongside his fiction, and his multiple occupational roles suggest a sustained engagement with writing across different forms rather than a career anchored in any single one.
Quotes by Louis de Bernières
Louis de Bernières's insights on:
We had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two.” Louis de Bernieres as quoted in Underland by Robert Macfarlane.
I used to have nightmare about having petrol poured over me, and being set on fire, and nowadays I have nightmares that I have wooden teeth and that they are continually falling out, as if I had an infinite number of them. It seems that everyone has their own inexplicable fear to have nightmares about. We need nightmares to keep ourselves entertained, and fend off the contentment that we all fear and abhor so much.
Remember that fear causes to happen the very things it fears. That’s why fear should be unknown to us.
Family law is institutionally anti-male. I’ve been lobbying MPs, and I’m not going to give up campaigning for equality until I get equality.
Love is a kind of dementia with very precise and oft-repeated clinical symptoms.
It’s stupid to claim that one human being is special, or picked out by God, when in fact there are hundreds of millions of human beings in the world, and God knows how many millions of people long dead who have been lost to history, all of whom were probably special to someone.
How strange that the world should change because of words, and words change because of the world.
The garden where you sit Has never a need of flowers, For you are the blossoms And only a fool or the blind Would fail to know it.
The trouble with fulfilling your ambitions is you think you will be transformed into some sort of archangel and you’re not. You still have to wash your socks.
Love itself is what is left over when being “in love” has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.