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Article: A sinister affair. (novelist Muriel Spark)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- November 23, 1991
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1991 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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MAKE a call to Muriel Spark in Tuscany and her telephone gives off a high scream, like one of the souls of the damned in the middle levels of Dante's Hell. it is only her fax, which she leaves plugged into her telephone unless she is expecting a call; yet the echoing wail seems a fitting welcome from this writer of blackly comic novels, whose subjects are evil and pain.
For the past 35 years her productivity has been remarkable. Modern classics such as "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie", "Memento Mori", "The Girls of Slender Means" and "The Abbess of Crewe" place Mrs Spark, in the eyes of many, among the three or four best novelists of the century. Yet ...