The work of Jean Rhys, another expatriate writer, has been an influence on that of Paul Theroux. (Documented in "Jean Rhys, Paul Theroux, and the Imperial Road", in "20th-century Literature" #38, Winter 1992)
Theroux's novel "Saint Jack" was inspired by Conrad's "Lord Jim" and features a corrupt version of Conrad's protagonist.
It was Naipaul who first suggested to Theroux--in Africa, in 1966--that he write fiction set there.
Theroux, who keeps bees in Hawaii, was inspired to do so, years before, when he read that Watson kept bees in Arthur Conan Doyle's THE LAST BOW and thought, "So one could just retire to the country and keep bees, eh?" (The Observer, London, 02/05/2000)
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The writers Paul and Alexander Theroux are brothers.
Marcel Theroux is Paul Theroux's son.
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"It was not strange that such a restless person was a traveler. Some of us are so much happier alone. He was self-conscious in the company of others....He talked--nervously, interestingly--boasted, joked, gossiped; his mind was always teeming. And then he would need the respite of solitude, or else new listeners."
"[H]e was timid, he was shy, he was needy. Deep down he knew he was a wisp. He's not the intellectual giant people made him to be."
"[P]erhaps the last writer on earth who could accurately be called a man of letters....His criticism was as inventive, as witty as his fiction....It is impossible to tell V.S. Pritchett's story better than he told it himself in his two volumes of autobiography, 'A Cab at the Door' (1968) and 'Midnight Oil' (1971)....He had once described writing as 'a labor delightful because it is fanatical.' He was happy and he was also fanatical."
"I did not understand a thing I read, nor did I begin to write well, until I married and had children."
"My fear is that I'll be boring....I don't want to be a bore. I would rather open a beauty parlor--I swear."
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Son of a leather salesman and a schoolteacher, Theroux is one of six children. He began writing at the age of 14. After high school, he attended the University of Maine and the University of Massachusetts (B.A., 1963), then began graduate school at Syracuse University but dropped out to join the Peace Corps. He taught English in Malawi until he was deported for his (unwitting) involvement in a plot to assassinate the head of the government. He then taught in Uganda until 1968, and in Singapore u more...
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04/10/1941 Massachusetts, New England, Northeastern States, United States,
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Hate it hate it hate it!