Louvish, Simon
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1947- ) Scottish author, in Israel 1949-1968, now in London; best known for a series of biographies of Cinema figures like Charlie Chaplin and Cecil B DeMille (none listed below). His Avram Blok sequence beginning with The Therapy of Avram Blok (1985) is a surreal, occasionally rampaging picaresque whose earlier instalments verge, if only metaphorically, into the fantastic; the topoi of Fantastika are more literally explored in The Days of Miracles and Wonders (1997), a Satire featuring a resurrected Richard the Lion Heart who has started a new crusade, and The Chinese Smile (2013), in which Blok himself seems to engage in Time Travel.
Louvish is of more secure sf interest for Resurrections from the Dustbin of History: A Political Fantasy (1992; vt The Resurrections 1992), an Alternate History whose Jonbar Point is the attempted assassination of Leon Trotsky in 1940; he subsequently rules the USSR until he dies a natural death in 1968. Hitler has emigrated to America, where he is a politician fomenting racial strife (see Race in SF). [JC]
Simon Louvish
born Glasgow, Scotland: 6 April 1947
works (selected)
series
Avram Blok
- The Therapy of Avram Blok (New York: Stein and Day, 1985) [Avram Blok: hb/]
- City of Blok (New York: HarperCollins, 1988) [Avram Blok: hb/]
- The Last Trump of Avram Blok (New York: HarperCollins, 1990) [Avram Blok: hb/]
- The Days of Miracles and Wonders (Edinburgh, Scotland: Canongate, 1997) [Avram Blok: hb/]
- The Fundamental Blok: A Tale of the Second Millennium (London: Margaret Macdonald Books, 2013) [Avram Blok: pb/]
- The Chinese Smile (London: Margaret Macdonald Books, 2013) [Avram Blok: pb/]
individual titles
- Resurrections from the Dustbin of History: A Political Fantasy (London: Bloomsbury, 1992) [hb/]
- The Resurrections (New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1992) [vt of the above: hb/]
links
previous versions of this entry