When Popper’s longtime NZ friend Colin Simkin became seriously ill in the late 1990s a man flew into Sydney to interview him for a Popper biography. Brian Boyd came too late because Simkin was too ill to see him. A few years later at the Popper conference in Vienna there was talk of Boyd’s biography but without any news on progress. Boyd’s major achievement was a massive and highly acclaimed biography of Vladamir Nabakov.
And now it is all happening, after a decade in cold storage the project will be funded by three-year grant of $600,000.
In the late 1990s Professor Boyd travelled to 16 countries to investigate archives and locations and interview over 90 Popper associates from politicians (like Helmut Schmidt) to philosophers (like Isaiah Berlin).
“I find Popper’s thought marvellously exciting and fertile, and the best defence I know against what John Searle calls ‘the attacks on . . . objectivity, rationality, truth and intelligence in contemporary intellectual life’.”
Professor Boyd has previously penned biographies on the great Russian novelist Nabokov, which were credited with contributing to the Nabokov revival. Boyd seeks to ensure the Popper biography has a similar impact.
Thanks to Dave Lull for the links!
