Brian Moore (Christian name pronounced Bree-an) (25 August 1921 – 11 January 1999) was an Irish novelist. He was acclaimed for his descriptions of life in Northern Ireland in the post-war era, in particular his explorations of the intercommunal divisions of The Troubles. Moore was also admired for his insight into female psychology, with women as the central narrative character in several of his books.
Moore was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 1975 and the inaugural Sunday Express Book of the Year award in 1987, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize three times. Moore also wrote screenplays and several of his books were made into films.
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Moore was born and grew up in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
His father, a surgeon, was pro-Axis during World War II, although Moore himself was a volunteer air raid warden during the bombing of Belfast by the Luftwaffe. He also served as a civilian with the British army in North Africa, Italy and France.
Moore had grown up in a large Roman Catholic family of nine children, but rejected that faith early in life. Some of his novels feature staunchly anti-doctrinaire and anti-clerical themes, and he in particular spoke strongly about the effect of the Church on life in Ireland. A recurring theme in his novels is the concept of the Catholic priesthood. On several occasions he explores the idea of a priest losing his faith. These works were criticized by his sister, a Roman Catholic nun.
His earliest novels were thrillers, published under his own name and the pseudonyms Bernard Mara and Michael Bryan.[1] Moore's first novel outside the genre, Judith Hearne, remains among his most highly regarded. It was made into a film, with Dame Maggie Smith playing the lonely spinster who is the book/film's title character. Several other Moore novels were adapted for the screen, including Intent to Kill (1958), The Luck of Ginger Coffey, Catholics, Black Robe, Cold Heaven, and The Statement. He also wrote the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock's Torn Curtain and The Blood of Others, based on the novel Le Sang des autres by Simone de Beauvoir.
Moore emigrated to Canada in 1948 and then settled in the United States in the early 1960's. His books, therefore, have settings as diverse as Montreal and Carmel, California.
Brian Moore died in 1999 at his home in Malibu, California, aged 77, of pulmonary fibrosis. He had been working on a novel about the 19th-century French symbolist poet Arthur Rimbaud. [1]
Moore's archives, which includes unfilmed screenplays, drafts of various novels, working notes, a 42 volume journal (1957-1998), and his correspondence, are now at The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas. [2]
Moore has been the subject of two biographies, Brian Moore: The Chameleon Novelist (1998) by Denis Sampson and Brian Moore: A Biography (2002) by Patricia Craig. One of the first critical retrospectives of Moore's entire body of work can be found in Brian Moore and the Meaning of the Past (2007) by Patrick Hicks
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