Self & I

Matthew De Abaitua

‘A moving lament for a vanished age’ Financial Times

SHORTLISTED: New Angle Prize

The scene is a remote cottage in Suffolk in the 1990s.

Will Self, newly divorced, is the in-demand enfant terrible of the British literary scene. Matthew De Abaitua, an eager young writer fresh out of Malcolm Bradbury's Creative Writing course at the University of East Anglia, is excited to be hired as his ‘amanuensis'.

It's not obvious what that intriguing job title will entail. In this unique, frank and often very funny portrait of one of our most talked-about and controversial literary figures, Self & I charts the highs and lows of the experience.

It is a compelling account of a remarkable time in Britain and British literature.

‘This erudite yet hilarious account will resonate with anyone trudging in the footsteps of a more successful figure’ The Observer

‘Painfully honest and extremely funny’ Jesse Armstrong

‘The denouement to this smart, funny memoir ends up being a paean to the novel itself’ The Spectator

‘A study of working-class ambition, an exegesis of the Self canon, a critique of masculinity, a window onto the last pre-digital moment, and a review of that hollow decade in which even the counter-culture was in hock to the establishment...’ TLS

‘Begins as an intoxicated, madcap romp, before it takes some unexpectedly touching turns’ Mail on Sunday

‘De Abaitua is a good storyteller, and his book gives us precisely the Self we might hope for... possessing a feverish hilarity that owes a debt to Withnail and I’ The Guardian

‘This sincere, touching book’ Sunday Times

‘An utterly compelling account of what it means to read, write, live and breathe literature’ Matt Thorne

‘Comes very close to being a classic memoir of literary apprenticeship’ The Oldie

Paperback

Published: Eye (February 2019)

ISBN: 9781785630798