Born in India, schooled under Mount Everest, Durrell spent his most productive years in Greece and around the Mediterranean. He was an accomplished poet, and his lyrical books about Mediterranean islands are among the best of their kind.

In wartime Egypt he conceived The Alexandria Quartet, which brought fame with its "exploration of modern love" and experimental form. His last great novel cycle, The Avignon Quintet, has intrigued with its formal complexity and compelling mystery - the story of his generation through peace and war.

Married four times, he lost two daughters (one through separation; the other through suicide) and his most blissful marriage ended in his wife's sudden death. Searching for wholeness after the shattering loneliness of his childhood, he rejected Christianity in favor of Western mysticism and Eastern religions. These things mark his work, showing a dark side to the effervescent wit evident in his writing.