More than half of Brian Aldiss’s autobiography deals with his childhood at
boarding schools and his war years in Burma, and their effects on him: “. . .
why, I was hardly fit for human society. Thus destiny shaped me to be a
science-fiction writer.” The Twinkling of an Eye is an often humorous, often
painful, but always fascinating and beautifully written account of Aldiss’s life
as a writer and critic, and more revealingly as a son, comrade, friend, lover,
husband and father. Published by Little Brown, £20, ISBN 0316647063.
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