William Boyd on his latest novel: "I don’t have any sense of slowing down or running out of ideas"

Penguin_WilliamBoyd_Snippet.png

Interviews

William Boyd: ‘A bad ending can ruin a good novel’

Features

The impulse decision that changed my life

Gabriel's Moon

** FROM THE WORLDWIDE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF RESTLESS AND ANY HUMAN HEART ** 
 
‘William Boyd once again brings to the spy novel his particular storytelling genius. The result is brilliant fun’ MICK HERRON 
 
------ 
 
An accidental spy. A web of betrayals. A mystery that will take you around the world . . . 
 
Gabriel Dax is a young man haunted by the memories of a tragedy: every night, when sleep finally comes, he dreams about his childhood home in flames. His days are spent on the move as an acclaimed travel writer, capturing changing landscapes in the grip of the Cold War. When he’s offered the chance to interview a political figure, his ambition leads him unwittingly into the shadows of espionage. 
 
As Gabriel’s reluctant initiation takes hold, he is drawn deeper into duplicity. Falling under the spell of Faith Green, an enigmatic and ruthless MI6 handler, he becomes ‘her spy’, unable to resist her demands. But amid the peril, paranoia and passion consuming Gabriel’s new covert life, it will be the revelations closer to home that change the rest of his story . . . 
 
------ 
 
In his most exhilarating novel yet, William Boyd transports you from the vibrant streets of sixties London to the sun-soaked cobbles of Cadiz and the frosty squares of Warsaw in this thrilling adventure. 
 
‘Engaging, intelligent and deeply satisfying. I rate him one of our greatest living novelists’ PETER JAMES 
 
‘Wonderfully ambiguous with notions of twisted reality and uncertain memory’ ANN CLEEVES 
 
‘A wonderfully intricate novel of espionage and elegant skulduggery’ JOHN BANVILLE 
 
‘I enjoyed it hugely. Boyd is one of my favourite authors – he never disappoints’ KATE ATKINSON 
 
‘Beautifully crafted and pleasingly unpredictable, the work of a man who knows what he is doing and makes it look effortless’ JAMES RUNCIE 
 
‘Simply the best realistic storyteller of his generation’ SEBASTIAN FAULKS 
 
‘There are few reading pleasures as great as giving in to a William Boyd novel’ SUNDAY TIMES

William Boyd was born in 1952 in Accra, Ghana, and grew up there and in Nigeria. He is the author of sixteen highly acclaimed, bestselling novels and five collections of stories. Any Human Heart was longlisted for the Booker Prize and adapted into a TV series with Channel 4. In 2005, Boyd was awarded the CBE. He is married and divides his time between London and south-west France.

Gabriel Dax is a young man haunted by the memories of a tragedy: every night, when sleep finally comes, he dreams about his childhood home in flames. His days are spent on the move as an acclaimed travel writer, capturing changing landscapes in the grip of the Cold War. When he’s offered the chance to interview a political figure, his ambition leads him unwittingly into a web of duplicities and betrayals. 
 
As Gabriel’s reluctant initiation takes hold, he is drawn deeper into the shadows. Falling under the spell of Faith Green, an enigmatic and ruthless MI6 handler, he becomes ‘her spy’, unable to resist her demands. But amid the peril, paranoia and passion consuming Gabriel’s new covert life, it will be the revelations closer to home that change the rest of his story. . .

The Mirror and the Road: Conversations with William Boyd

'One of Britain's most celebrated contemporary novelists' Sunday Times 
 
In this probing series of exclusive interviews, Alistair Owen talks to William Boyd about his works and the life which has inspired them. 
 
 The conversations which emerge are a deep-dive into film, art, theatre, literature and the life of a writer. This is one of Britain's most beloved authors on what it is to write in a variety of forms. 
 
'William Boyd has probably written more classic books than any of his contemporaries' Daily Telegraph 
 
 'Arguably one of Britain's finest living writers' Sunday Express

William Boyd has probably written more classic books than any of his contemporaries

One of Britain's most celebrated contemporary novelists

Arguably one of Britain's finest living writers

Boyd is back on a form few of his contemporaries can match. This fine, touching and clever book is the best thing he's written since [Any Human Heart] and deserves similar adulation

A finely judged performance: a deft and resonant alchemy of fact and fiction, of literary myth and imagination

Boyd on form is the ultimate in immersive fiction, and Love is Blind is Boyd at the top of his game . . . magnificent

Alistair Owen (Author) Alistair Owen is the author of five acclaimed books of interviews with British writers, including two Guardian and Observer books of the year. He has written screenplays, stage plays and arts journalism, and chaired writer Q&amp;As at events, festivals and online. His first novel, The Vetting Officer, is available on Kindle and in paperback. William Boyd (Author) William Boyd was born in 1952 in Accra, Ghana, and grew up there and in Nigeria. He is the author of sixteen highly acclaimed, bestselling novels and five collections of stories. Any Human Heart was longlisted for the Booker Prize and adapted into a TV series with Channel 4. In 2005, Boyd was awarded the CBE. He is married and divides his time between London and south-west France.

In this probing series of exclusive interviews, Alistair Owen talks to William Boyd about his works and the life which has inspired them. 
 
The conversations which emerge are a deep-dive into film, art, theatre, literature and the life of a writer. This is one of Britain's most beloved authors on what it is to write in a variety of forms.

The Romantic

Soldier. Farmer. Felon. Writer. Father. Lover. 
One man, many lives. 
 
Born in 1799, Cashel Greville Ross experiences myriad lives: joyous and devastating, years of luck and unexpected loss. Moving from County Cork to London, from Waterloo to Zanzibar, Cashel seeks his fortune across continents in war and in peace. He faces a terrible moral choice in a village in Sri Lanka as part of the East Indian Army. He enters the world of the Romantic Poets in Pisa. In Ravenna he meets a woman who will live in his heart for the rest of his days. As he travels the world as a soldier, a farmer, a felon, a writer, a father, a lover, he experiences all the vicissitudes of life and, through the accelerating turbulence of the nineteenth century, he discovers who he truly is. This is the romance of life itself, and the beating heart of The Romantic. 
 
From one of Britain's best-loved and bestselling writers comes an intimate yet panoramic novel set across the nineteenth century. 
 
'Picaresque, big-hearted and moving, this is Boyd at the top of his game' Guardian 
 
'There are few reading pleasures as great as giving in to a William Boyd novel' Sunday Times 
 
'One of our best contemporary storytellers' Spectator 
 
'Simply the best realistic storyteller of his generation' Sebastian Faulks

The Romantic by William Boyd was the novel I enjoyed most this year. It's incredibly ambitious, its hero moving from Co Cork to London, then from Waterloo to Zanzibar, and at one point even joining the East Indian Army, but it was such an easy, indulgent read

[One of the] most enjoyable new novels I read this year . . . [it] offers deep pleasure to those who love novels, instruction to anyone setting out to write one

Boyd is as magically readable as ever, and, as always with his whole life novels, there is an invigorating air of spontaneity

William Boyd's The Romantic is disguised a an historical biography - The Real Life of Cashel Greville Ross - but is actually an utterly engrossing adventure story . . . Cashel, we understand, is searching for himself, but in the process he provides romance, entertainment and enlightenment for his readers. How better to spend the relaxed days around Xmas than following his footsteps

Storytelling is what floats my boat and William Boyd's The Romantic, a return to his "whole-life" novels, has it in spades. Following our hero Cashel Greville Ross (Boyd is big on names) from Ireland to the Battle of Waterloo, then India, Italy, New England, Africa and beyond, it has enough engrossing variety to fill several books, not just the one

Cashel ultimately emerges as a one-off - an inimitable character, whether he knows it or not . . . what is often lost behind the sheer pleasure brought by [Boyd's] books is their layered Chekhovian subtleties: Boyd is abundantly talented at capturing life's disconnections . . . it is intoxicating to be in the company of a writer who seems to be having such fun

William Boyd's new novel is one of his best

A rambunctious, swashbuckling tale, told with panache by a master storyteller . . . Those who fall in love with The Romantic may wonder whether their own lives lack adventure. Surrender to this fine novel's spell, though, and it will vicariously supply more than enough thrills for anyone

Boyd's back, baby. The great writer of big, splashy (mostly) historical adventures has gone all guns blazing on this one . . . The pages brim with famous names and exotic locations - with Florentine palazzos, debtors' prisons, scandalous love affairs, Byron and the Battle of Waterloo . . . pure, joyful escapism

If it's true escapism you're after, William Boyd can always be relied upon to transport the reader from reality and his next offering, The Romantic, another epic that follows Cashel Greville Ross from 19th-century Country Cork to Zanzibar via Oxford and Sri Lanka, offers a wonderful literary getaway as the nights draw in

Vogue, A Most Promising Page-Turner of the Season

Packed with passion, adventure, suspense, comic interludes and a range of colourful characters . . . the rollicking work of a masterful storyteller, The Romantic is both a vivid portrait of a life and a sweeping panorama of an age

The Romantic is certainly a crowd-pleaser . . . Boyd knows how to time the hights and lows, how to blend triumphs and tragedies, personal and historical . . . genuinely poignant and wise

A satisfyingly meaty novel in the rich vein of his earlier classics The New Confessions and Any Human Heart. As we have come to expect, here is exceptional storytelling - pristine, immersive, and intoxicating. The elegant prose is characteristically detailed and precise . . . It has the expansiveness of many classic 19th century novels. There's a Dickensian warmth and verve, an epic scale, a spirited sense of chance and adventure. Boyd as ever stresses period detail, and the novel is as informative as it is entertaining . . . It is bravura, high octane stuff, eventful and sometimes on the edge of chaos

A panoramic and deeply satisfying narrative from an author on top form

It's tremendously entertaining and, as always with Boyd, virtually impossible to stop reading

A globe-trotting adventure through the 19th century

Boyd's pile-up of set piece escapades offers a huge amount of fun

Boyd's books are so enjoyable that it's hard for us to resent the tricks being played on us, even as we find ourselves constantly reaching for Google, wanting to know what is and isn't real

There's a cornucopia of fine things here . . . The Romantic, always enjoyable, ranks with two of his best: The New Confessions and Any Human Heart. Both were intelligent and engrossing, novels you lived with. Both told a fine story very well. The Romantic does just that

A ripping yarn. And as such, it is pretty much faultless: as moreish as good chocolate, terrifically entertaining, and deeply humane

One of our best contemporary storytellers

A narrative that Charles Dickens or Jane Austen would surely have been happy to claim as their own . . . there's a joy to Boyd's storytelling throughout and his hero is one to cheer for

A wonderful tale that spans a life of adventure, this is storytelling at its very best

Crammed with incident, the novel has the wonderfully freewheeling quality that one associates with the great 19th-century novelists. As with most of Boyd's works, it manages to be warm-hearted and deliciously sardonic at the same time

William Boyd taps into the classic novel tradition with this sweeping tale of one man's century-spanning life

There is no doubt that Boyd is a masterful storyteller . . . this is a book to get totally, utterly and delightfully lost in

A new novel by William Boyd is always a treat and in his picaresque latest, The Romantic, his hero is Cashel Greville Ross, born in 1799, a soldier, lover, friend of poets, bankrupt and adventurer who is swept into many of the most important episodes of the 19th century

This highly entertaining, engrossing page-turner is the fictionalised biography of Cashel Greville Ross, who was born in 1799 in Scotland and brought up in Cork. Such is William Boyd's mastery as a storyteller, one begins to believe that all of the events are entirely real

The Romantic is a rollicking read that will delight his many fans

A wild ride across the 19th century on the back of a narrative that never pauses for breath . . . this breakneck pace seems to be a function of Boyd's exceptional imaginative facility, which sees him just as irresistibly drawn to new ideas as his hero is

What could be more reassuring in troubling times than a new William Boyd novel? Trio is immensely readable, its descriptions full of light and colour, its humour spot on, its mood a perfect mix of frolicsome and melancholy

Reading William Boyd's Trio is like shrugging on a worn leather jacket on the first brisk morning of autumn: cosy but cool . . . He has enormous fun with the worlds - and egos - of page and screen

Breakneck pace seems to be a function of Boyd's exceptional imaginative facility, which sees him just as irresistibly drawn to new ideas as his hero is . . . there's something irresistible about that energy . . . if a whole-life novel is intended to represent the span of a unique existence, then The Romantic gets it right

The Romantic is a whole-life novel, a form in which Boyd excels . . . a terrific read

Front inside cover printing 
 
'Pure, joyful escapism' The Times, Best Fiction Books of 2022 
 
'The rollicking work of a masterful storyteller, The Romantic is both a vivid portrait of a life and a sweeping panorama of an age' The Economist 
 
'Boyd is as magically readable as ever and, as always with his whole-life novels, there is an invigorating air of spontaneity' Telegraph 
 
'Pretty much faultless: as moreish as good chocolate, terrifically entertaining, and deeply humane' i 
'It is intoxicating to be in the company of a writer who seems to be having such fun' Guardian 
 
'A panoramic and deeply satisfying narrative from an author on top form' Mail on Sunday

Born in 1799, Cashel Greville Ross experiences myriad lives: joyous and devastating, years of luck and unexpected loss. Moving from County Cork to London, from Waterloo to Zanzibar, Cashel seeks his fortune across continents in war and in peace. He faces a terrible moral choice in a village in Sri Lanka as part of the East Indian Army. He enters the world of the Romantic Poets in Pisa. In Ravenna he meets a woman who will live in his heart for the rest of his days. As he travels the world as a soldier, a farmer, a felon, a writer, a father, a lover, he experiences all the vicissitudes of life and, through the accelerating turbulence of the nineteenth century, he discovers who he truly is. This is the romance of life itself, and the beating heart of The Romantic.

Fascination

Fascination is master storyteller William Boyd's third volume of short stories 
 
Described as "the finest storyteller of his generation", and following his acclaimed collections On the Yankee Station and The Destiny of Nathalie X, in Fascination Boyd shows his brilliance of the form as these stories range widely through time and space. In a dazzling array of styles and narratives we move from 1930s Germany to Los Angeles in the Second World War, from contemporary Oxford to 19th century Russia. Whether in London or Amsterdam. Eastbourne or a Normandy village these stories explore and expose the fraught, funny, absurd, poignant and lovelorn lives of their many and varied characters. 
 
Fascination will be loved by fans of Any Human Heart, as well as readers of William Trevor, Sebastian Faulks, Nick Hornby and Hilary Mantel. 
 
'The stories here are perfect . . . suffused with an understanding of love, desire and emotional incompetence' Guardian 
 
'Perfectly formed snapshots of life at its most mystifying' Daily Mail 
 
'Consistently entertaining' Literary Review 
 
'Boyd achieves his best writing, observing tiny moments of love, lust and epiphany with extraordinary sensitivity' Spectator

The stories here are perfect . . . suffused with an understanding of love, desire and emotional incompetence

Perfectly formed snapshots of life at its most mystifying

Boyd achieves his best writing, observing tiny moments of love, lust and epiphany with extraordinary sensitivity

Sixteen brilliant short stories from one of today's most original storytellers. Wide-ranging in style and subject matter, the collection moves from 19th century Russia to Second World War Los Angeles to modern-day Eastbourne. First published in Penguin in 2005 to great acclaim, now reissued with a striking new cover image.

Trio

'An elating read' Sunday Times 
 
A producer. A novelist. An actress. 
 
It is summer in 1968, the year of the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. There are riots in Paris and the Vietnam War is out of control. While the world is reeling our three characters are involved in making a Swingin' Sixties movie in sunny Brighton. 
 
All are leading secret lives. Elfrida is drowning her writer's block in vodka; Talbot, coping with the daily dysfunction of making a film, is hiding something in a secret apartment; and the glamorous Anny is wondering why the CIA is suddenly so interested in her. 
 
But the show must go on and, as it does, the trio's private worlds begin to take over their public ones. Pressures build inexorably - someone's going to crack. Or maybe they all will. 
 
From one of Britain's best loved writers comes an exhilarating, tender novel that asks the vital questions: what makes life worth living? And what do you do if you find it isn't? 
_______________________________________________ 
 
PRAISE FOR WILLIAM BOYD 
 
'The ultimate in immersive fiction . . . magnificent' Sunday Times 
 
'A finely judged performance: a deft and resonant alchemy of fact and fiction, of literary myth and imagination' Guardian on Love is Blind 
 
'William Boyd has probably written more classic books than any of his contemporaries' Daily Telegraph 
 
'Simply the best realistic storyteller of his generation' Sebastian Faulks

A middle-aged film producer, a novelist with writer's block and a glamorous young actress come together to make a Swinging Sixties movie in this jaunty page-turner. But everyone is living a double life. Even names can't be taken on trust. Full of neat phrases and quirkily funny scenes, it's an elating read

An absorbing novel about lives spiralling out of control and the drastic measures required to right them

The characters are wonderfully written and I loved escaping to the gossipy world of the film set

Boyd keeps the plot racing along, yet for all the twists, the real delight is in William Boyd's wry portrait of a bygone age . . . Boyd's usual sure touch is evident throughout this tender, gently comic work

One of our best contemporary storytellers. . . Trio embraces comedy, tragedy and redemption. It succeeds impressively because of its dramatic, often sensational, revelations

I am a huge fan of William Boyd and the tender way he writes about the flaws and frailties of his characters. Trio is his best novel in years

Reading William Boyd's Trio is like shrugging on a worn leather jacket on the first brisk morning of autumn: cosy but cool . . . He has enormous fun with the worlds - and egos - of page and screen

Enormous fun . . . Boyd's characters are vibrant, his prose elegant, comedy excellent: the result is a book that's compassionate and compelling

Boyd's writing is as fluent as ever but it's the ideas pulsing beneath the surface that distinguish Trio

Trio is an intricate set of variations on the idea of alternative selves, well beyond the title's trio, unobtrusively elegant in its formal beauty

Sending an affably satiric shimmer over the ceaseless rewrites, grotesque miscastings and behind-the-scenes chicanery, William Boyd simultaneously explores deeper issues of duplicity and divided personality

Sunday Times, Best Fiction Books of the Year

A producer. A novelist. An actress. 
 
It is summer in 1968, the year of the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. While the world is reeling our trio is involved in making a rackety Swingin' Sixties British movie in sunny Brighton. All are leading secret lives. As the film is shot, with its usual drastic ups and downs, so does our trio's private, secret world begin to take over their public one. Pressures build inexorably - someone's going to crack. Or maybe they all will. 
 
From one of Britain's best loved writers comes an exhilarating, tender novel that asks the vital questions: what makes life worth living? And what do you do if you find it isn't?

Waiting for Sunrise

Brought to you by Penguin. 
 
Vienna, 1913. Lysander Rief, a young English actor, sits in the waiting room of the city's preeminent psychiatrist as he anxiously ponders the particularly intimate nature of his neurosis. When the enigmatic, intensely beautiful Hettie Bull walks in, Lysander is immediately drawn to her, unaware of how destructive the consequences of their subsequent affair will be. One year later, home in London, Lysander finds himself entangled in the dangerous web of wartime intelligence - a world of sex, scandal and spies that is slowly, steadily, permeating every corner of his life... 
 
© William Boyd 2012 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

Vienna, 1913. Lysander Rief, a young English actor, sits in the waiting room of the city's preeminent psychiatrist as he anxiously ponders the particularly intimate nature of his neurosis. When the enigmatic, intensely beautiful Hettie Bull walks in, Lysander is immediately drawn to her, unaware of how destructive the consequences of their subsequent affair will be. One year later, home in London, Lysander finds himself entangled in the dangerous web of wartime intelligence - a world of sex, scandal and spies that is slowly, steadily, permeating every corner of his life...

William Boyd

When Brodie Moncur, a young Scottish musician, is offered a job in Paris, he seizes the chance to flee Edinburgh and his tyrannical clergyman father and begin a wildly different new chapter in his life. In Paris, a fateful encounter with a famous pianist irrevocably changes his future - and sparks an obsessive love affair with a beautiful Russian soprano, Lika Blum. Moving from Paris to St Petersburg to Edinburgh and back again, Brodie's love for Lika and its dangerous consequences pursue him around Europe and beyond, during an era of overwhelming change as the 19th century becomes the 20th. 
 
Love is Blind is a tale of dizzying passion and brutal revenge; of all the possibilities that life can offer, and how cruelly they can be snatched away. At once an intimate portrait of one man's life and an expansive exploration of the beginning of the 20th century, Love is Blind is a heart-stopping new novel from one of Britain's greatest writers.

William Boyd

Books by William Boyd

Series by William Boyd

James Bond 007

Articles featuring William Boyd

William Boyd: ‘A bad ending can ruin a good novel’

The impulse decision that changed my life

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter