Any Human Heart

What you need to know before your trail

Mountstuart is  a writer whose life (1906–1991) spanned the defining episodes of the 20th century, crossed several continents and included a convoluted sequence of relationships and literary endeavours. Written in diary form, it explores how public events impinge on individual consciousness.

There are descriptions and mentions of the war, the death of a prime minister and the abdication of the king. Many famous writers appear in the story – he has a spat with Virginia Woolf in London, a possible sexual encounter with Evelyn Waugh at Oxford, a clumsy exchange with James Joyce in Paris, and a friendship with Ernest Hemingway that spans several years.