Robert Irwin (1946-2024)
Author, editor, and scholar Robert Irwin, 77, died June 28, 2024 in London. Irwin is the author of several books of genre interest, most notably his debut novel The Arabian Nightmare (1983).
Robert Graham Irwin was born August 23, 1946 in Guildford, Surrey in the UK. He attended Epsom College, studied history at the University of Oxford, and did graduate work at the School of Oriental and African Studies. Irwin taught medieval history at the University of St. Andrews from 1972 to 1977 before deciding to focus on his fiction writing, though he still lectured at Oxford, Cambridge, and other institutions. He worked as the Middle East editor of The Times Literary Supplement.
His other novels include The Limits of Vision (1986), The Mysteries of Algiers (1988), Exquisite Corpse (1995), Prayer-Cushions of the Flesh (1997), Satan Wants Me (1999), Wonders Will Never Cease (2016), and My Life Is Like a Fairy Tale (2019). The Runes Have Been Cast (2021) was followed by sequel Tom’s Version (2023).
Irwin was a prolific academic author, and his non-fiction includes The Arabic Beast Fable (1992), The Arabian Nights: A Companion (1994), For Lust of Knowing: The Orientalists and their Enemies (2006), and Visions of the Jinn: Illustrators of the Arabian Nights (2011), and Memoirs of a Dervish: Sufis, Mystics and the Sixties (2011). He edited Night and Horses and the Desert: The Penguin Anthology of Classical Arab Literature (1999).
He is survived by his wife, daughter, and grandchildren.
For more, see his entry in the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.
