Norman Lewis

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For the politician Norman Lewis (politician).

Norman Lewis (28 June 1908–22 July 2003) was a prolific British writer best known for his travel writing. Though he is not very widely known, he is considered by some to be one of the most important writers of the twentieth century. Graham Greene wrote:

"Norman Lewis is one of the best writers, not of any particular decade, but of our century".

Lewis served in World War II and wrote an account of his experiences during the Allied occupation of Italy, Naples 44. Shortly after the war he produced volumes about Burma, Golden Earth, and French Indochina, Dragon Apparent. His intrepid boots-on-the-ground view of Vietnam under French colonial domination, without being itself a political rant, gives context to any discussion of the American experience in that battered and subjugated part of the world.

Lewis was fascinated by cultures which were little touched by the modern world. This was reflected in his books on travels to Indonesia, An Empire of the East, and among the tribal peoples of India, A Goddess in the Stones.

Lewis's first wife was a Sicilian aristocrat, and Sicilian life, including the Mafia was another of his major themes, reflected in The Honoured Society and In Sicily. His treatment of the Mafia was not sensationalist, but based on an acute understanding of Sicilian society and a deep sympathy with the sufferings of the Sicilian people, without losing sight of the horrors inflicted by the organisation.

Another major concern of Lewis's is the impact of missionary activity on tribal societies in Latin America and elsewhere. He was hostile to the activities of missionaries, especially American evangelicals. This is covered in the volume, Among the Missionaries and several shorter pieces.

Lewis wrote several volumes of autobiography, again concerned primarily with his observations of the many places in which he lived at various times, which included St Catherine's Island in North Wales, the Bloomsbury district of London during World War II, Nicaragua, a Spanish fishing village, and a village near Rome.

Lewis also wrote at least ten novels. Some of these enjoyed significant success at the time of publication, but his reputation rests mainly on his travel writing.

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