Louis Simpson Biography | Author of Chocolates

Chocolates Author Biography

As the son of a mother of Russian ancestry and a celebrated writer himself, Louis Simpson is well qualified to write about the popular Russian writer Anton Chekhov. Simpson was born in Kingston, Jamaica, West Indies, in 1923, to Aston Simpson, a lawyer, and Rosalind Marantz Simpson, a World War I émigré and actress. His father was successful, and the Simpsons led a privileged life, with a large house, and maids, cooks, chauffeurs, and assorted other servants. In Simpson's own words they lived as "well-to-do colonials." His mother's storytelling was an early influence on Simpson's writing. She told stories about growing up inPoland and she told fairytales. Simpson's childhood desire, in fact, was not to be a poet but to write stories.

Educated atMunro College, referred to by islanders as the "Eton of Jamaica," the young Simpson read English literature and English history, and cultivated the taste of an...
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