By the Waters of Whitechapel by Bernard Kops

By the Waters of Whitechapel by Bernard Kops

Aubrey Field, thirty-five, balding, and not exactly slim, daydreams of a rich future. “I want my life to bear fruit,” he cries, but home is with his mother above a sweetshop in Whitechapel. They are among the few survivors of what was once a large local community and they live, surrounded by strangers, in the house where Aubrey was born. Suffocating but resigned, Aubrey cannot leave Whitechapel, and he cannot leave his mother. “It was useless, he was trapped. She would never let him go.” Then fate, in the guise of Zena, the beautiful blonde daughter of a kosher butcher, intervenes. From the moment Aubrey meets this femme fatale, life becomes enormously more complicated. In pursuit of Zena, Aubrey determines to break free. He passes himself off as a young barrister with a fast sports car and forges his mother’s signature to a check. One incredible experience follows another, and for a while it seems as though Aubrey’s fantasies are about to become reality. Against the background of a Jewish East London that is fading and changing, Bernard Kops’s new novel is a novel to remember. It is at once funny and macabre, and it cuts deep into the quixotic posturing of a man who is both pathetic and endearing. Aubrey Field finally escapes from his mother and his despair, but not in the way that he or anyone else could possibly have imagined.

Bernard Kops was born in the East-end of London in 1926; into stark poverty and political chaos. He is one of Britain's leading playwrights. The youngest of seven children of an immigrant Dutch-Jewish family, Kops left school at thirteen during the Blitz. He tried his hand at acting and the second hand book trade, drifting through the then-bohemian world of Soho and won sudden, unexpected fame in 1957 with his East End play The Hamlet of Stepney Green. This was drama steeped in the Yiddish theatrical tradition: a sweet-and-sour comedy including brilliant poetry set to music, the play portrayed a dying working-class community through the frustrating relationship between an ailing father and his adult son. He was hailed for it by the critics of the day as a significant contribution to the-then fashion in England for 'kitchen-sink' dramas. It has been performed all over the world. His play about the anti-Semitic poet Ezra Pound was produced first at the Half Moon theatre with Ian MacDiarmid giving one of his finest performances as Ezra. Playing Sinatra, another of his favourite plays has also been produced around the world. It had an incredible reception when it went to Warehouse Croydon and Greenwich Theatre, and is soon to open in April 2012 in Washington D.C. In all, he has written more than 40 plays, nine novels and two autobiographies. He also runs a master-class for playwrights. Bernard lives in London. Five o'clock every morning you'll find him at his desk, working away. Writing is still his obsession. 'I would rate Bernard Kops with Sean O' Casey and Arthur Miller. As a poet, he ranks with the other great European poet/playwright, Federico Garcia Lorca: the same passion, directness and lyrical intensity. His poems about nuclear war, about the Holocaust (in which many of his family perished) and more recently about his love for his wife Erica and his immediate family, will be remembered for their shapely form and their personal force. He is a worthy literary descendant of the First World War poet Isaac Rosenberg.' Michael Kustow

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780393337372
ISBN 10	0393337375
Title	By the Waters of Whitechapel
Author	Bernard Kops
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	WW Norton & Co
Year published	1970-11-02
Number of pages	240
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable