Fires Which Burned Brightly

A Life in Progress

De: Sebastian Faulks

Narrado por: Sebastian Faulks

Brought to you by Penguin.

‘The only dividend of the years’ vanishing, as far as I can see, is that it makes aspects of the past appear more interesting or humorous than they felt at the time.’

In Fires Which Burned Brightly, Faulks, a reluctant memoirist, offers readers a series of detailed snapshots from a life in progress. They include a post-war rural childhood – ‘cold mutton and wet washing on a rack over the range’ – the booze-sodden heyday of Fleet Street and a career as one of the country’s most acclaimed novelists.

There are not one, but two daring escapes from boarding school; the delirium of a jetlagged American book tour; the writing of Birdsong in his brother’s house in 1992; and memorable trips across the channel to France. Politics, psychiatry and frustrated ventures into the world of entertainment are analysed with patience and rueful humour.

The book is driven by a desire ‘to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.’ It ends with a tribute to Faulks’s parents and a sense of how his own generation was shaped by the disruptive power of war and its aftermath.

Sharply perceptive and alive with a generous wit, Fires Which Burned Brightly is a work of subtle yet profound intelligence and warmth.

© Sebastian Faulks 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

Reseñas de la Crítica

Sebastian Faulks is one of our finest living authors, a writer whose work has often explored the fragility of human sanity and how easily it can unravel . . . A wise and heartfelt piece of writing

Intriguing, fascinating and enlightening . . . filled with gratitude and charm, but also full of evidence of the endless curiosity that is every great novelist’s weapon of choice (Nick Duerden)

A wonderful portrait of an age, and of a writer (RORY STEWART, author of Politics on the Edge)

Utterly fascinating (DAVID KYNASTON, author of A Northern Wind)

Shot through with the kind of depth and detail that can only come from a masterful writer finally turning his pen to his own life. Fresh, wise and finely-wrought (ALICE WINN, author of In Memoriam)

As charming and funny in schoolboy episodes as he is thought-provoking in the darker environs of mental health, Sebastian Faulks is always resonant, civilised and sane (MARK KNOPFLER)

Entertaining . . . It ends with a beautiful tribute to his father, a modest, genuine war hero

Well written and spoken memoir of a family life to be proud of. . .

I learned interesting facts about the author and his family well recounted with a quiet humility.