Derek Collett was born on the western fringes of London in 1965. He was brought up in Oxfordshire and still lives in the county today. Educated at Wallingford School and Southampton University, he obtained a degree in Chemistry and has worked in scientific, technical and medical publishing for almost 30 years, latterly in a freelance capacity.
Derek read his first Nigel Balchin novel, The Small Back Room, in 1991 and has been obsessively reading and re-reading the author’s works ever since. In 2008 he used his love of Balchin’s fiction as the springboard to launch a new career for himself as a literary writer. Articles about Balchin soon started to appear in publications ranging from The Oldie and This England to Wiltshire Life, Book and Magazine Collector and The Oxford Times and Derek’s first book, His Own Executioner: The Life of Nigel Balchin, was published in the autumn of 2015. The only biography of Balchin to date, His Own Executioner was described as ‘first-rate’ by The Literary Review and D.J. Taylor in the TLS remarked that ‘Collett paints a convincing picture’.
Author Website & Blog: www.nigelmarlinbalchin.co.uk
Twitter: @nmbalchinbiog | Facebook: Derek M Collett
Bibliography:
His Own Executioner: The Life of Nigel Balchin (SilverWood Books, 2015)
Hailed by John Betjeman as ‘one of our dozen readable living writers of genius’, Nigel Balchin was one of the best-known English novelists of the Second World War generation: few writers so tangibly convey the excitement and terror of Blitz-era Britain. Little wonder then that Balchin’s books, among them Mine Own Executioner and The Small Back Room, were seized upon by film-makers of the calibre of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.
Never previously the subject of a biography, Balchin was not only a brilliant novelist and BAFTA-winning screenwriter: he was also largely responsible for the success of Black Magic chocolates. Yet his alcoholism and tormented love life ensured that his writing became increasingly uneven. Like Patrick Hamilton before him, Balchin drifted into obscurity but his compelling novels continue to be rediscovered by a new generation of fans, including Oscar-winning screenwriter Julian Fellowes and best-selling author Philippa Gregory. Derek Collett’s groundbreaking biography fills an important gap in the history of twentieth-century fiction and introduces to a whole new generation the novelist whom Clive James once described as ‘the missing writer of the Forties’.
Buy His Own Executioner: The Life of Nigel Balchin from Amazon
Pitch to Publishers & Festival Organisers:
Derek Collett has given a number of talks about Nigel Balchin in recent years to organizations including the Sohemian Society, the New Sheridan Club and the Balchin Family Society. Having read and studied Balchin for twenty-five years, Derek has the advantage that he plainly knows what he is talking about. He speaks knowledgeably and engagingly about Balchin, skilfully bringing out the humour in the man’s books and reflecting Balchin’s casual, laissez-faire attitude to life. But he does not shy away from also discussing the darker, less savoury aspects of a career that was derailed by a combination of alcoholism, marital problems and money worries.
As a public speaker, Derek benefits from the fact that his subject has the virtue of novelty. His 2015 book, His Own Executioner: The Life of Nigel Balchin, is the first biography of the novelist and Derek knows of no-one else in the country who is currently lecturing about this fascinating, outrageously talented yet deeply flawed human being.
Contact email: backroomboyATtalktalk.net
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