Miller, Henry

(US, 1891–1980)

Aged 40, Miller left America and settled in Paris, determined to become a serious writer; he certainly became a notorious one. His first novel, Tropic of Cancer (1934), was published in Paris and banned everywhere else until the early 1960s, as was its successor, Tropic of Capricorn (1939). Written in a confessional, exuberant, pell-mell style, the books chronicle Miller's early life in New York and his days (and nights) amongst the low life of bohemian Paris, recounting his sexual adventures in frank detail and explicit language. Other works include the trilogy, Sexus, Plexus, and Nexus (1949–59), which are autobiography thinly disguised as fiction. With the unbanning of his novels, Miller, then in his seventies, was transformed from underground writer of ‘dirty’ books to champion of sexual liberation and freedom of literary expression.

William Burroughs, Lawrence Durrell, Anais Nin. See SEXUAL POLITICS  TH