William Boyd is a writer of considerable range who has won several awards. I am a big fan and have read all nine of his novels. The following seven are strongly recommended:
A Good Man In Africa (1981)
- This won the 1981 Whitbread Literary Award for Best First Novel and is a laugh-out-loud account of the misadventures of a British diplomat posted to a corrupt African state.
An Ice-Cream War (1982)
- Winner of the John Llewelyn Rhys Memorial Prize for 1982 and shortlisted for the Booker Prize. It is concerned with a campaign fought in Africa during the First World War; a serious novel written with a light touch.
Stars And Bars (1984)
- A very funny book about an Englishman’s travails in the USA.
The New Confessions (1987)
- An outstanding novel in which a veteran film-maker looks back on his life during the first seventy years or so of the twentieth century. Meticulously researched.
Brazzaville Beach (1990)
- A very powerful novel of extraordinary scope which won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction.
The Blue Afternoon (1993)
- Not his best but still a good story well-told.
Any Human Heart (2002)
- Similar in style and scope to The New Confessions. It is an ambitious work of fiction covering most of the twentieth century and several continents and ranging from comedy to tragedy.
The only two of Boyd’s novels which I do not rate highly are Armadillo (1998), which I simply did not enjoy, and Restless (2006). The latter is an espionage thriller which won the Costa Novel Award. It is an easy read but, in my view, is not really worthy of this writer’s talents.
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