Anthony Blunt
Miranda Carter
2003 Nominee
Whitbread Biography Award
2002 Winner
The Orwell Prize
2001 Nominee
Guardian First Book Award
2002 Nominee
CWA Dagger for Non-Fiction
608 pages
Synopsis
When Anthony Blunt died in 1983, he was a man about whom almost anything could be - and was - said. As Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures and Director of the Courtauld Institute, Blunt's position was assured until his exposure in 1979 left his reputation in tatters. Miranda Carter's brilliantly insightful biography gives us a vivid portrait of a human paradox. Blunt's totally discrete lives, with their permanent contradictions, serve to remind us that there is no one key to any human being's identity: we are all a series of conflicting selves.
Astonishingly goodDaily Telegraph
Highly impressive... sensitive and compelling... Miranda Carter has written a richly informative biography which, in the end, does not fall into the trap of tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner - not only because she is not seeking to pardon him, but also because there is something here that is still quite impossible to comprehendNoel Malcolm, Sunday Telegraph
A compelling biography... Miranda Carter's skill at scouring the different compartments of Blunt's life is deeply impressiveJulian Barnes, New Yorker