Malcolm Lowry

Malcolm Lowry (1909-1957), English novelist, short story writer, and poet, born in Birkenhead. He is famous for his quasi-autobiographical novel Under the Volcano (1947). Written in the 1930s, the work recounts, through a grotesque and nightmarish vision, the physical and spiritual breakdown of an English consul in Mexico. The work did not achieve much critical or public recognition until after Lowry's death. Lowry lived for a time in Hollywood, California, working on film scripts, and the narrative technique of the novel is indebted to the art of film. In 1984 it was made into a film directed by John Huston.