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Maurice Leitch (born 5 July 1933) is an author born in Northern Ireland. Leitch's work includes novels, short stories, dramas, screenplays and radio and television documentaries. His first novel was ''The Liberty Lad'', published in 1965. His second novel, ''Poor Lazarus'' was awarded the Guardian Fiction Prize〔(Guardian Fiction Award Winners 1965–1998 )〕 in 1969, and ''Silver's City'' won the Whitbread Prize〔(Costa-Whitbread Award Winners 1971–2013 )〕 in 1981. Leitch taught in primary schools in Antrim for several years before joining BBC Northern Ireland in 1960 as a producer/writer. In 1970, he moved to London to become a producer in the BBC's Radio drama department. From 1977 until 1989 he was editor of Radio Four's Book at Bedtime, until leaving in 1989 to write full-time. In the New Year Honours List, 31 December 1998, he was awarded an MBE〔(New Year Honours, 31 December 1998 BBC report )〕 for services to literature. ==Life and Works – Ireland== Maurice Henry Leitch was born in the village of Muckamore, County Antrim, to Jean, née Coid, and Andrew Leitch of Templepatrick, Antrim on 5 July 1933. He was educated at Methodist College Belfast, and Stranmillis Training College, Belfast. (Stranmillis, now Stranmillis University College, holds a distinctive place in Irish education, established after partition to offer Northern Ireland a non-denominational training college. Resistance from the Roman Catholic schools – and Catholic bishops – to accepting Stranmills-trained teachers subsequently defined the college as Protestant.) For a novelist whose characterful Protestant voice was to jostle with traditional Irish Catholic writing throughout his career, his Protestant background continues to provide a nearly unique perspective on a troubled Irish history, indeed, according to ''The Cambridge Companion to the Irish Novel'', anticipating the Troubles by revealing the 'terminal decay, sullen hatred and sour futility in his region',〔( p. 160 ''The Cambridge Companion to the Irish Novel'', 2006 )〕 notably in his first novel, ''The Liberty Lad''. It was while teaching in the Protestant primary schools of Antrim that Leitch began his professional writing, with pieces about the Antrim countryside published in the Belfast Telegraph, a countryside that would later prove far from bucolic in his novels. He moved on to short stories for Northern Ireland Children's Hour,〔(Northern Ireland Children’s Hour, BBC Archive )〕 before following the career path that had been established by the poet Louis MacNeice (1907–1963), and poets and writers of MacNeice's generation including W. R. Rodgers and Sam Hanna Bell who had paved the way for Ulster writers to join the BBC. In the Corporation their sensibility was encouraged and flourished and Leitch, by contributing features, and joining the BBC Features department in 1960 as a producer/writer was one of the last significant authors to emerge from the fertile Ulster tradition. Adding Radio Drama to his repertoire in 1960 with ''The Old House'', he wrote and produced documentaries during his time at the BBC in Belfast. ''The Liberty Lad'' was published in 1965, adding to his growing reputation with its portrait of a schoolmaster, a threatened mill closure and a corrupt unionist politician. It also caused a stir that went beyond the currently political, not least because of its representation of sexuality, including male homosexuality. In the book ''Banned in Ireland: Censorship and the Irish Writer'', Leitch describes the reception he received at a personal level: ‘I did get a lot of backlash, particularly my first book ... from people who knew me socially and from the village I came from. It still affects certain people. It seemed terribly shocking that I would actually mention the fact that homosexuality existed, particularly in an Irish context, whether North or South, because there's not much difference really between the attitudes North or South. It just seemed a subject worthy of writing about because it was another extension of repression. Ireland is sexually repressed; let's face it.’ 〔(Maurice Leitch interviewed by Julia Carlson, ''Banned in Ireland'' p. 100 )〕 According to Jeff Dudgeon, in his article''Mapping 100 Years of Gay Life in Belfast'', Leitch also documented gay history with that book: ‘The Royal Avenue (RA) Bar in Rosemary Street (the hotel's public bar, opposite the Red Barn pub) as portrayed in Maurice Leitch's fine 1965 novel ''The Liberty Lad'' (probably the earliest description of a gay bar in Irish literature) was the first in the city.’ 〔(Jeff Dudgeon in ''The Vacuum'', issue 11, ''Mapping 100 Years of Belfast Gay Life'' )〕 His second novel, ''Poor Lazarus'', was published in 1969, while Leitch was still living in Northern Ireland, and it, too, was banned in the South. This time the protagonist is Albert Yarr, an isolated – 'tormented' as described by Tom Paulin〔(Tom Paulin Belfast Diary, ''London Review of Books'', 18 July 1998 )〕 – Protestant in a predominantly Catholic area who is offered a temporary resurrection when he is recruited by a documentary film maker. This book, too, caused unease in the North, with references to the 'Romper Room' where the UDA tortured and murdered victims. The Belfast poet and cultural arbiter John Hewitt, a 'man of the left', was among those who objected. In her critical study of Hewitt, ''Poet John Hewitt, 1907–1987 and Criticism of Northern Irish Protestant Writing'', Sarah Ferris points to Hewitt's cultural protectionism by quoting John Kilfeather:〔(Sarah Ferris, ’’Poet John Hewitt, 1907–1987 and Criticism of Northern Irish Protestant Writing’’ , Mellen Press, p.114 )〕 'For years () black-mouthed ... Maurice Leitch and Robert Harbinson. He obscurely hinted that they let the Protestant side down – Leitch by his, in John's terms, extraordinary outburst against Orangeism in ''Poor Lazarus''...' In England, ''Poor Lazarus'' was received with acclaim and awarded the Guardian Fiction Prize for 1969. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Maurice Leitch」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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