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Christopher Isherwood
Life Time
26 August 1904 - 4 January 1986
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Christopher Isherwood was born on August 26, 1904 in Disley, Cheshire, United Kingdom, to an army officer who died in World War I. He received his education in Cambridge, in 1928-1929 he studied medicine at King’s College in London. In 1928 he made his debut as a writer, publishing the novel All the Conspirators, and in 1932 was published Memorial. In 1930-1933, Isherwood worked as an English teacher in Germany. Life in Weimar, pre-Hitler Berlin served as the basis for his most famous works - "Berlin
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Christopher Isherwood was born on August 26, 1904 in Disley, Cheshire, United Kingdom, to an army officer who died in World War I. He received his education in Cambridge, in 1928-1929 he studied medicine at King’s College in London. In 1928 he made his debut as a writer, publishing the novel All the Conspirators, and in 1932 was published Memorial. In 1930-1933, Isherwood worked as an English teacher in Germany. Life in Weimar, pre-Hitler Berlin served as the basis for his most famous works - "Berlin Stories". In fact, they are two loosely structured novels, The Works and Days of Mr. Norris (1935) and Goodbye Berlin (1939). The first formed the basis of the play and film “I am a camera”, and the second became later a famous musical, and then no less famous film “Cabaret”. Other books by Christopher Isherwood include Lions and Shadows (1938), Prater's Violet (1945), Peace in the Evening (1954), Ramakrishna and His Students (1965), Kathleen and Frank (1971), Christopher and his Company (1977), and the Tree of Desire (1982).
In 1938, the writer, along with his friend, the poet Hugh Auden, went to warring China, from where he emigrated to the United States in 1939. In America, he worked as a screenwriter at MGM Studios, received American citizenship in 1946 and lived in Santa Ana for the rest of his life. Since the late 1950s, Isherwood has lectured at various universities. In the 1940s he became interested in mysticism, began to study the Vedas, became a student of guru Swami Prabhavananda, even translated the Bhagavad-gita with him. In the 1970s, the writer became a prominent international activist for the recognition of the rights of sexual minorities, one of the first to declare his homosexuality. Christopher Isherwood died on January 4, 1986.