British Literature of the 1930s: Brits Abroad

What is the course about?

What inspired authors of the 1930s to travel and to write about travel? Where did they go and why? How did they record, embellish and fictionalise their experiences, and what influenced their choices of style and genre? On this course we will begin to answer these questions through readings of four classic texts: Graham Greene’s Stamboul Train (1932), Christopher Isherwood’s Goodbye to Berlin (1939), George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia (1938) and Jean Rhys’ Good Morning, Midnight (1939).

What will we cover?

In Stamboul Train, the first of his so-called ‘entertainments’, Graham Greene set out to please readers and revive his flagging career, not to mention sell the film rights. Yet the novel exemplifies what Christopher Hitchens calls “the essence of Greeneland … the combination of the exotic and the romantic with the sordid and the banal”. Despite having himself travelled only a section of the Orient Express, Greene invents an exhilarating tale of the meetings and couplings of various travellers on the famous train.

By the time she wrote her fourth novel, Good Morning, Midnight, Jean Rhys had perfected her own stream of consciousness technique – poetic, fragmented, mingling together past and present. Inspired by her own sojourns in Paris, the novel explores issues of sexual morality, identity, power and marginality through the memorable character of Sasha Jensen and her intense encounters with strangers in the city.

Christopher Isherwood spent the years 1929 to 1932 in Berlin, cruising the gay bars, observing the beginnings of Nazism, and keeping a detailed diary, from which he created the stories published in Goodbye to Berlin. The most famous of these, ‘Sally Bowles’, was the inspiration for the musical and film Cabaret, but the others are no less interesting, not least for their apparently detached perspective; on the very first page, Isherwood announces: “I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking”.

Homage to Catalonia, George Orwell’s memoir of his time fighting in the Spanish Civil War, anticipates the themes of his later celebrated novels in its skewering of both fascism and communism. It is also a remarkably honest and truthful work of reportage, setting out to counter the misinformation, lies and hypocrisies surrounding the war, while also vividly relating his own experiences, including surviving a bullet through the neck.

What will I achieve?
By the end of this course you should be able to...

• Discuss significant 1930s British writing about travelling, living and fighting abroad
• Understand some classic texts and authors in the context of their times
• Recognise the techniques and styles of key writers of the period.

What level is the course and do I need any particular skills?

All you need is enthusiasm for reading and discussing literature.

How will I be taught, and will there be any work outside the class?

The course will be highly participatory and interactive, with a combination of tutor presentation, small group work, close reading exercises and class discussion.

Are there any other costs? Is there anything I need to bring?

Please buy or borrow a copy of the following, ideally in the stated editions.

• Graham Greene, Stamboul Train (Vintage Classics)
• Christopher Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin (Vintage Classics)
• George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia (Penguin Modern Classics)
• Jean Rhys, Good Morning, Midnight (Penguin Modern Classics).

When I've finished, what course can I do next?

The same tutor will also be teaching HLT366 Poetry of the Troubles: Seamus Heaney and his Contemporaries in term one, starting in October 2025.Look for other literature courses under History, Culture and Writing/Literature at www.citylit.ac.uk.