Alexander Baron

Last December I found myself weary and tired, walking in the late afternoon from Canonbury Station towards the invisible boundary where Dalston begins. I arrived only hours earlier that morning for a short stopover in London on my way back to Israel. I wanted to retrace certain steps of my own, but I mainly set out to explore as much as possible of Hackney's hidden corners and some of the lost voices of former writers from the area. Alexander Baron is a name that keeps recurring and the deeper I dig, the more questions arise and the more intrigued I become. Before I left I had the chance to read his seminal 1963 London novel and cult classic The Lowlife. But going back further, it was Baron's heavily autobiographical trilogy of novels related to the Second World War that originally launched his literary career. 

I picked up There's No Home at a second hand bookshop along Charing Cross Road. The photo below is displayed on the inside back cover of the republished 2011 edition from Sort of Books. It's from the author's personal collection and was discovered among his papers along with Baron's letters and unpublished manuscripts. Much of which shed more light on his experiences as a soldier in the British army during the Second World and his disillusionment with the Stalinist left and his own awakening as a Jewish writer. 

Equally intriguing, the photo inside the opposite front cover is of an unnamed young Sicilian woman. She looks to be in her early-mid twenties and is wearing a striped dress. Her hair is dark and tied back and it's clear that she is a figure who has influenced Baron's work, specifically with this novel. The photo was also found after Baron's passing in 1999. 

Alexander Baron as a British army soldier during the Second World War. Personal Collection