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Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark
In this latest episode of Biographers in Conversation, Dr James Bailey chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about Like a Cat Loves a Bird: The Nine Lives of Muriel Spark.
Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:
Why James structures Spark’s life as nine partial portraits rather than a unified chronological narrative.
How Muriel Spark’s changing appearance during sittings for Sandy Moffat’s portrait provides the biography’s perfect opening scene.
Why James preserves Spark’s contradictions and asks open-ended questions instead of pretending to solve her.
How extensive archival research…
The skinny
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