I first encountered Jonathan Raban as an absence, a glamorous rumour. I had come to UEA in 1970 as a graduate student. He had left the year before but was far from forgotten. The pubs where he drank were pointed out to me. One of my tutors, Malcolm Bradbury, directed me to an article he had written about the art of criticism as a form of fiction writing. The idea struck me as faintly scandalous but also very exciting. What if critics were, in their own way, story tellers? What if the purpose of criticism was to release the reader’s imagination rather than confine it in concepts? There seemed to be something free spirited about his writing. He didn’t want to get boxed in by oppositions between the modern and the traditional, or the English and the American, but would think on his own terms about what he liked and what he didn’t. I wanted to read more.

https://mailchi.mp/96d51859b721/eland-newsletter-remembering-jonathan-raban?e=c80ff7272f