America's Boy; A Century of Colonialism in the Philippines
New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1999. First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. 462 pages. Maps. Chronology. References. Bibliography. Index Some DJ wear and soiling. James Hamilton-Paterson FRSL (born 6 November 1941) is a poet, historian and novelist. He is one of the most reclusive of British literary exiles, dividing his time between Austria, Italy and the Philippines. He was educated at Exeter College, Oxford. Paterson earned his first break as a writer in 1969, when he began working as a reporter for the New Statesman. This continued until 1974, when he became features editor for Nova magazine. Hamilton-Paterson is generally known as a commentator on the Philippines, where he has lived on and off since 1979. His novel Ghosts of Manila (1994) portrayed the Philippine capital in all its decay and violence and was highly critical of the Marcoses – a view he rescinded with the publication of America's Boy (1998), which sets the Marcos regime into the geopolitical context of the time. In 1989, Gerontius was published, a reconstruction of a journey made by the composer Sir Edward Elgar along the River Amazon in 1923. Regarded by admirers as being among the best British novels of the 1980s, its poetic language, dreamlike landscapes and lush imaginings won him the Whitbread Award for first novel. He won acclaim for his Gerald Samper trilogy as well as his non-fiction book Empire of the Clouds, which details the aviation industry in post-war Britain. Hamilton-Paterson was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2023. More