The Novelist in the Field: 1946–74

Abstract

Neither of the rooms we shared at the Institute for over twenty years can have been more than eighteen feet square. Taking up most of the space were two large wooden desks, set facing each other. Their cigarette-scarred surfaces were obscured by stacks of wire trays full of slipping piles of galley proofs, dog-eared folders of yellowing manuscripts and dangerously leaning towers of books endlessly awaiting review.

It ought to be enough for anybody to be the Assistant Editor of Africa, especially when the Editor is away lecturing for 6 months at Harvard, but I find it isn’t quite.¹