Editing Al Alvarez (section)

==Background==
Alfred Alvarez was born in London, to an [[Ashkenazic Jewish]] mother and a father from a [[Sephardic Jewish]] family. He was educated at [[Hall School (Hampstead)|The Hall School]] in [[Hampstead]], London, and then [[Oundle School]] and [[Corpus Christi College, Oxford]], where he took a First in English. He was subsequently elected as a [[Jane Eliza Procter Fellowship|Jane Eliza Procter Visiting Fellow]] at [[Princeton University]]. After teaching briefly in [[Oxford]] and the United States, he became a full-time writer in his late twenties. From 1956 to 1966, he was the poetry editor and critic for ''[[The Observer]]'', where he introduced British readers to [[John Berryman]], [[Robert Lowell]], [[Sylvia Plath]], [[Zbigniew Herbert]], and [[Miroslav Holub]].

Alvarez was the author of many non-fiction books. His renowned study of suicide, ''The Savage God'', gained added resonance from his friendship with Plath. He also wrote on divorce (''Life After Marriage''), dreams (''Night''), and the oil industry (''Offshore''), as well as his hobbies of poker (''[[The Biggest Game In Town]]'') and mountaineering (''[[Feeding The Rat|Feeding the Rat]],'' a profile of his frequent climbing partner [[Mo Anthoine]]). His 1999 autobiography is entitled ''Where Did It All Go Right?''

His 1962 poetry anthology ''[[The New Poetry]]'' was hailed at the time as a fresh departure. It championed the [[Poetry of the United States|American style]], in relation to the perceived excessive 'gentility' of [[British poetry]] of the time. In 2010, he was awarded the [[Benson Medal]] by the Royal Society of Literature.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Benson Medal |url=http://www.rslit.org/content/benson |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100405221013/http://www.rslit.org/content/benson |archive-date=5 April 2010 |publisher=[[The Royal Society of Literature]]}}</ref>