WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY SIMON CALLOW

In 1939, as Europe approaches war, Isherwood, an instinctive pacifist, travels west to California, seeking a new set of beliefs to replace the failed Leftism of the thirties. There he meets Swami Prabhavananda, a Hindu monk, who will become his spiritual guide for the next thirty-seven years. Late-night drinking sessions, free love, and the glamour of writing for the Hollywood studios alternate with meditation, abstinence and the study of religious texts in a compelling tug of war between worldliness and holiness.

First published in 1980, Isherwood's overlooked last book is central to an understanding of his life and work.

About the Author
Christopher Isherwood was born in 1904. He began to write at university and later moved to Berlin, where he gave English lessons to support himself. He witnessed first hand the rise to power of Hitler and the Nazi party in Germany and some of his best works, such as Mr. Norris Changes Trains and Goodbye to Berlin, draw on these experiences. He created the character of Sally Bowles, later made famous as the heroine of the musical Cabaret. Isherwood travelled with W.H Auden to China in the late 1930s before going with him to America in 1939. He died on 4 January 1986. His novel A Single Man was recently made into an award-winning film by Tom Ford, starring Colin Firth and Julianne Moore.

Reviews
Isherwood has reinvented the spirit of devotion for the modern reader. If I had to propose a candidate for canonization, Isherwood - wry, self-conscious, scrupulously honest - would get my vote -- Edmund White * New York Times *
A masterpiece of spiritual memoir * Los Angeles Times *
What emerges is a record of a religious adventure that would have delighted Kierkegaard... Isherwood rejects conventional piety - all the humdrum apparatus of worship - in favor of a direct, even jaunty appreciation of how preposterous, certainly precarious, spirituality can be today. * New York Times *
The sacred and the profane collide like never before -- Giles Foden * Conde Nast Traveller *



Book Information
ISBN 9780099561231
Author Christopher Isherwood
Format Paperback
Page Count 320
Imprint Vintage Classics
Publisher Vintage Publishing
Weight(grams) 224g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 20mm