Editing Alan Sillitoe (section)

== Biography ==
Sillitoe was born in [[Nottingham]] to working-class parents, Christopher Sillitoe and Sabina (née Burton). Like Arthur Seaton, the anti-hero of his first novel, ''[[Saturday Night and Sunday Morning]]'', his father worked at the [[Raleigh Bicycle Company]]'s factory in the town.<ref name=guardianobit/> His father was illiterate, violent,<ref name=econobit>{{cite news|newspaper=The Economist|title=Alan Sillitoe|url=http://www.economist.com/node/16004295|access-date=5 June 2013|date=29 April 2010}}</ref> and unsteady with his jobs, and the family was often on the brink of starvation.<ref name=guardianobit/>

Sillitoe left school at the age of 14, having failed the entrance examination to [[grammar school]].<ref name=telegraphobit/> He worked at the Raleigh factory for the next four years, spending his free time reading prodigiously and being a "serial lover of local girls".<ref name=econobit/> He joined the [[Air Training Corps]] in 1942,<ref name="theguardian.com">{{Cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/education/2008/may/20/academicexperts.highereducationprofile|title = Interview: Alan Sillitoe| website=[[TheGuardian.com]] |date = 19 May 2008}}</ref> then the [[Royal Air Force]] (RAF), albeit too late to serve in the [[World War II|Second World War]]. He served as a wireless operator in [[Malayan Union|Malaya]] during the [[Malayan Emergency|Emergency]].<ref name=guardianobit/> After returning to Britain, he was planning to enlist in the [[Royal Canadian Air Force]]<ref name="theguardian.com"/> when it was discovered that he had [[tuberculosis]]. He spent 16 months in an RAF hospital.<ref name=guardianobit/>

Pensioned off at the age of 21 on 45 shillings (£2.25) a week, he lived in France and Spain for seven years in an attempt to recover. In 1955, while living in [[Mallorca]] with the American poet [[Ruth Fainlight]], whom he married in 1959,<ref>{{cite web|title=Sillitoe-Fainlight |url=http://www.paulbowles.org/sillitoefainlightbowles.html |access-date=11 December 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120124101401/http://www.paulbowles.org/sillitoefainlightbowles.html |archive-date=24 January 2012 |url-status=live |df=dmy }}</ref> and in contact with the poet [[Robert Graves]], Sillitoe started work on ''Saturday Night and Sunday Morning'', which was published in 1958. Influenced in part by the stripped-down prose of [[Ernest Hemingway]], the book conveys the attitudes and situation of a young factory worker faced with the inevitable end of his youthful philandering. As with [[John Osborne]]'s ''[[Look Back in Anger]]'' (1956) and [[John Braine]]'s ''[[Room at the Top (novel)|Room at the Top]]'' (1957), the novel's real subject was the disillusionment of post-war Britain and the lack of opportunities for the working class. ''Saturday Night and Sunday Morning'' was adapted as a [[Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (film)|film with the same name]] by [[Karel Reisz]] in 1960, with [[Albert Finney]] as Arthur Seaton; the screenplay was written by Sillitoe.<ref name=wapoobit/>

Sillitoe's story ''The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner'', which concerns the rebellion of a [[borstal]] boy with a talent for running, won the [[Hawthornden Prize]] in 1959.<ref name=guardianobit/> It was also adapted into a [[The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (film)|film]], in 1962, directed by [[Tony Richardson]] and starring [[Tom Courtenay]]. Sillitoe again wrote the screenplay.

With Fainlight he had a child, David. They later adopted another, Susan. Sillitoe lived at various times in [[Kent]], London and [[Montpellier]].<ref name=guardianobit/> In London he was friendly with the bookseller Bernard Stone (who had been born in Nottingham a few years before Sillitoe) and became one of the bohemian crowd that congregated at Stone's Turret Bookshop on [[Kensington|Kensington Church Walk]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/feb/10/guardianobituaries.booksobituaries|title=Obituary: Bernard Stone| website=[[TheGuardian.com]] |date=10 February 2005}}</ref>

In the 1960s Sillitoe was celebrated in the [[Soviet Union]] as a spokesman for the "oppressed worker" in the West. Invited to tour the country, he visited several times in the 1960s and in 1968 he was asked to address the Congress of Soviet Writers' Unions, where he denounced [[Human rights in the Soviet Union|Soviet human rights abuses]], many of which he had witnessed.<ref name=guardianobit/>

In 1990 Sillitoe was awarded an honorary degree by Nottingham Polytechnic, now [[Nottingham Trent University]]. The city's older [[Russell Group]] university, the [[University of Nottingham]], also awarded him an honorary D.Litt. in 1994. In 2006 his best-known play was staged at the university's [[University of Nottingham#Lakeside Arts Centre|Lakeside Arts theatre]] in an in-house production.

Sillitoe wrote many novels and several volumes of poems. His autobiography, ''Life Without Armour'', which was critically acclaimed on publication in 1995, offers a view of his squalid childhood. In an interview Sillitoe claimed that "A writer, if he manages to earn a living at what he's doing, even if it's a very poor living, acquires some of the attributes of the old-fashioned gentleman (if I can be so silly)."<ref>Wood, Ramsay,"Alan Sillitoe: The Image Shedding the Author", Four-Quarters, La Salle College, Philadelphia, 1971 [http://www.roberttwigger.com/ Robert Twigger blog entry, 6 August 2011]</ref>

''Gadfly in Russia'', an account of his travels in Russia spanning 40 years, was published in 2007.<ref name=bbcobit/> In 2008, [[London Books]] republished ''A Start in Life'' in its London Classics series to mark the author's 80th birthday. Sillitoe appeared on ''[[Desert Island Discs]]'' on [[BBC Radio 4]] on 25 January 2009.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00gsv4l|title = BBC Radio 4 - Desert Island Discs, Alan Sillitoe}}</ref>

Sillitoe's long-held desire for ''Saturday Night and Sunday Morning'' to be remade for a contemporary filmgoing audience was never achieved, despite strong efforts. [[Danny Brocklehurst]] was to adapt the book and Sillitoe gave his blessing to the project, but Tony Richardson's estate and Woodfall Films prevented it from going ahead.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/natasha-richardson-member-of-celebrated-acting-family-who-found-success-on-stage-and-screen-1649501.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090321182315/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/natasha-richardson-member-of-celebrated-acting-family-who-found-success-on-stage-and-screen-1649501.html |archive-date=2009-03-21 |url-access=limited |url-status=live|newspaper=[[The Independent]]|title=Natasha Richardson: Member of celebrated acting family who found success on stage and screen|author=Tom Vallance|date=20 March 2009|access-date=5 June 2013}}</ref>

Sillitoe was elected a Fellow of the [[Royal Society of Literature]] in 1997.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.rslit.org/content/fellows |title=Royal Society of Literature All Fellows |publisher=Royal Society of Literature |access-date=10 August 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100305070326/http://www.rslit.org/content/fellows |archive-date=5 March 2010 }}</ref>