Garland, Alex

(British, 1970– )

The son of a newspaper cartoonist, Garland studied the history of art at Manchester University before travelling around Thailand and the Far East. His first novel, The Beach (1997), tapped into a ready-made subculture of student and graduate backpackers, describing an intriguing search for a mythically secluded and unspoiled beach. On reaching it, however, the heroes discover other paradise-hunters have already colonized it and before long hierarchical power-structures take hold. It was filmed starring Leonardo DiCaprio in 2000. Garland's stylized second novel, The Tesseract (1998), takes a more panoramic view of its environment, the modern city of Manila, including everything from westernized gangsters to anxious housewives and wily street kids.

Jack Kerouac, Esther Freud  RP