The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner

Alan Sillitoe left school at 14 to work in various factories until becoming an air traffic control assistant with the Ministry of Aircraft Production in 1945. He began writing after four years in the RAF, and lived for six years in France and Spain. In 1958, 'Saturday Night and Sunday Morning' was published, and 'The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner', which won the Hawthornden Prize for literature, came out the following year. Both these books were made into films.