Christopher Isherwood (1904–86,) fully Christopher William Bradshaw-Isherwood, was a prolific Anglo-American writer who worked in many genres, comprising fiction, drama, film, travel, and autobiography. He immigrated to the USA in 1939 and became interested in Hindu philosophy.
Born in Disley, Cheshire, England, Isherwood was educated at Repton and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and studied medicine at King’s College, London, 1928–29, but gave it up to teach English in Berlin 1929–33. His best-known works, Mr. Norris Changes Trains (1935) and Goodbye to Berlin (1939,) were centered on his outsider’s view of the decadence of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Nazism.
In collaboration with poet W. H. Auden, a school friend, and later lover, Isherwood wrote three prose-verse plays with political overtones, which use Expressionist technique, music-hall parody, and ample symbolism to portray the social climate: The Dog Beneath the Skin (1935,) The Ascent of F6 (1937,) and On the Frontier (1938.)
Isherwood traveled in China with Auden in 1938 and wrote Journey to a War (1939.) ln 1939, he emigrated to California to be a scriptwriter for MGM and took U.S. citizenship in 1946. The Broadway hit I am a Camera (1951; film 1955,) and the musical Cabaret (1966; film 1972,) were based on his earlier Berlin stories, especially Sally Bowles (1937.) Later novels include Prater Violet (1945,) The World in the Evening (1954,) and Meeting by the River (1967.)
In the 1940s, Isherwood became much interested in oriental religion, specifically Vedānta philosophy. With Swami Prabhavananda, he produced an acclaimed translation of the Hindu religious classic The Bhagavad-Gītā (1944) and a collection of the aphorisms of Patanjali (1953.)
Isherwood also translated Charles Baudelaire’s Intimate Journals (1947,) and wrote several autobiographical books, including A Single Man (1964; film 2009) and Christopher and His Kind (1977.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Christopher Isherwood
I doubt if one ever accepts a belief until one urgently needs it.
—Christopher Isherwood
Topics: Belief
Horror is always aware of its cause; terror never is. That is precisely what makes terror terrifying.
—Christopher Isherwood
Topics: Fear
Life is not so bad if you have plenty of luck, a good physique, and not too much imagination.
—Christopher Isherwood
Topics: Life and Living, Life
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Raymond Chandler American Novelist
Langston Hughes American Poet, Writer
William Saroyan American Playwright, Novelist
Truman Capote American Novelist
Norman Mailer American Novelist, Journalist
John Cheever American Novelist
Frank Herbert American Science-fiction Writer
Laurence Housman English Novelist, Dramatist
Thomas Wolfe American Novelist
Ellery Queen American Crime Fiction Authors