Within contemporary British literature D. M. Thomas stands as a novelist, poet, translator, and biographer of distinction as well as a figure of considerable controversy. Early in his career he was honored with the Translator's Award of the British Arts Council for his work on the Soviet poet Anna Akhmatova. He also received the Chomondeley Award for poetry in 1978, and his first novel, The Flute-Player (1979), gained him substantial recognition with the Guardian-Gollancz Fantasy Novel Award. The White Hotel (1981), which remains Thomas's most important literary achievement, was the recipient of both the Cheltenham Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Award in 1981. Nominated for the Booker Prize, The White Hotel established Thomas's literary reputation and shocked the British literary establishment to its roots. The novel was passed over for Britain's most prestigious literary award in favor of Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, which a decade and a half later won...