ABSTRACT
Durrell neither wrote an autobiography nor kept an orderly diary. The apparent reason for that is that Durrell viewed that kind of writing as a waste of precious time he could dedicate to poetry, prose and play writing. Whatever he had to say or write about his life could be found in his prose and poetry, he argued, thereby demonstrating the interweaving of biographical and fictional elements found in literature. Durrell thought that a writer must keep his personal experiences appropriately at bay if he was to be able to write.
The concluding chapter of my study will explore some aspects of Durrell’s life that I find pertinent to a richer reading of the Quartet. It is by no means an attempt to explain his life through the Quartet or vice versa. Nor is this chapter a comprehensive or exhaustive biographical study.
The author of The Alexandria Quartet searches for his homeland took him on a marvellous journey of writing, where he explored his life and made sense of it. However, he remained alone in his unheimliche universe of his own making. His glaring solitude leaves him alone on the desert island of his existence, a very spiritually rich universe, entire of itself.
