born July 28, 1909, Birkhead, Cheshire, Eng.
died June 27, 1957, Ripe, Sussex
British novelist, short-story writer, and poet.
In his youth Lowry rebelled against his conventional upbringing and shipped to China as a cabin boy; he later lived in France, the U.S., Mexico, Canada, and Italy. His reputation rests on the novel Under the Volcano (1947), about the last desperate day of a dispirited alcoholic and former British consul in Mexico. Its juxtaposition of images of social decay and self-destructiveness was seen as a symbolic vision of Europe on the verge of World War II. Though critically praised, it received popular recognition only after Lowry's death at age 47, probably the result of alcoholism.