SOURCE: Abse, Dannie, and Mark Boada. “An Interview with Dannie Abse at Princeton University.” Anglo-Welsh Review 25, no. 54 (1975): 128-46.

In the following interview, Abse reflects on how his background has influenced his approach to medicine and writing.

Dannie Abse was born on September 22, 1923, the youngest of four children of a lower-middle class Jewish family in Cardiff. After attending a state primary school, Abse went on to an Irish Catholic high school in Cardiff, where he was taught by the Christian Brothers. Then, with the strong influence of his eldest brother, Wilfred (a medical student at the time, and now an eminent psychiatrist), Abse decided upon a medical career. After one year at the University of Wales in Cardiff, he left for London and King's College. He completed his medical training at West-minster Hospital in 1950, but not before he had spent the previous year free-lancing, going to football games, and...