Nigel Dennis

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Nigel Forbes Dennis (16 January 1912 – 19 July 1989) was an English writer, critic, playwright and magazine editor. Born in Surrey, he was the son of a British Army officer. After his father died in 1918, the family moved to Southern Rhodesia. As a teenager he lived with his uncle, diplomat Ernan Forbes Dennis, and attended a school in Kitzbühel; he also studied at the progressive Odenwaldschule in Germany before returning to England. He went to the United States in 1934 to work as a journalist.

Dennis was married twice. His first wife, Marie-Madeleine Massias, gave him two daughters. His second wife was the actress Beatrice Hewart Matthew. He spent his later years mainly in Malta and died in Gloucestershire in 1989.

In his career he worked for the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures, The New Republic and Time, which brought him back to Britain around 1950. His first novel, Boys and Girls Come out to Play (1949), won the Anglo-American novel award (shared with Anthony West). In 1955 he published Cards of Identity, a satire that became a play in 1956. His third novel, A House in Order, explored personal identity. He also wrote criticism and non-fiction, and edited Encounter in the 1960s. His plays Cards of Identity, The Making of Moo and August for the People were staged at the Royal Court; The Making of Moo was revived in 2009. Susan Sontag praised him as a writer she admired.