Drugs, sex, violence and thinking about death are at the core of the George Miles cycle of five novels. New Generation Thinker Diarmuid Hester draws the links between the author Dennis Cooper and the radicalism of the Marquis de Sade. Now 70, Cooper's books have been praised for his non naturalistic writing and the texture of teenage thought that he captures in the series, which begins with Closer, and condemned for depravity. George Miles was his childhood friend and then lover, who ended up committing suicide.

Diarmuid Hester teaches at the University of Cambridge and is a 2020 New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council which selects ten academics each year to turn their research into radio. He has published WRONG: A Critical Biography of Dennis Cooper, and Nothing Ever Just Disappears: Seven Hidden Histories
You can hear him talking about Derek Jarman's garden in this Free Thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jgm5 and discussing the new narrative movement in America alongside Dodie Bellamy https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001q76q

Producer: Luke Mulhall Show less