Muriel Spark was one of literature’s great shapeshifters. That mercurial quality is found in her strange, brilliant, cruel novels – with their plots featuring pensioners receiving telephone calls from Death, the devil going clubbing in Peckham and a fascist schoolmistress leading her coterie of girls astray – but it is also true of her as a person. As sly, nimble and elegant as Spark’s own work, Like a Cat Loves a Bird is a thrilling new perspective on a remarkable life and career that spanned much of the twentieth century. From her childhood in Edinburgh to her final years in Tuscany – via South Africa, London, New York and Rome – it traces a light-footed journey around the world and through her strange and magnificent bibliography. It tells an irresistible story of transformation, wit and fierce determination and makes a passionate case for this vital modern artist.
