Christopher Isherwood: To celebrate June as Gay Pride Month, Christopher Isherwood is the focus for this episode Cover to Cover-Open Book that comes to us from the Vault. Born in England in 1904, Isherwood came to the United States in 1939 and lived in Santa Monica, California from then until his death in 1986. Isherwood’s literary career began in 1928 with the publication of his first novel, All the Conspirators, and he is probably best known for The Berlin Stories, a collection of writing that fictionalized his life in pre-World War II Berlin; this book was later adapted as the stage play I am a Camera and the popular musical Caberet.
In this program, you will hear a number of rare recordings of Christopher Isherwood, including a recording of the play "The Ascent of F-6," written by Isherwood and W.H. Auden in 1937 (adapted, produced and performed in 1962 at Pacifica station KPFK- Los Angeles by Isherwood and Auden themselves, among others), and an address by Isherwood called "A Personal Statement," given at the University of California- Berkeley as part of the series The Writer at Mid-Century: The Moral Crisis (1962).