16 Facts About Alexander Baron

Alexander Baron was a British author and screenwriter.

Alexander Baron is best known for his highly acclaimed novel about D-Day, From the City, from The Plough, and his London novel The Lowlife.

Alexander Baron was born in Maidenhead, where his mother Fanny had been evacuated during Zeppelin raids.

The family soon returned to London, and Alexander Baron was raised in the Hackney district of London.

Alexander Baron helped establish what became the League's monthly paper, Advance.

Alexander Baron campaigned against the fascists in the streets of the East End and edited the Young Communist League magazine Challenge.

Alexander Baron became increasingly disillusioned with hard left politics as he spoke to International Brigade fighters returning from the Spanish Civil War.

Alexander Baron was for a while a full-time Communist Party worker and according to his memoir Chapters of Accidents had been chosen to go underground in the event that the Party was proscribed during the Second World War, which it initially denounced as 'an imperialist war'.

Alexander Baron finally broke with the communists shortly after the war.

Alexander Baron served in the Pioneer Corps of the British Army during World War II, and was among the first Allied troops to be landed in Sicily, Italy and on D-Day.

Alexander Baron wrote the script for the pilot episode, "A Scandal in Bohemia," of Granada Television's The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

In 1991, Alexander Baron was elected an Honorary Fellow of Queen Mary, University of London, in recognition of his contribution to the historical and social understanding of East London.

Since Alexander Baron died in December 1999 many of his novels have been republished, testifying to a strong resurgence of interest in his work among the reading public as well as among critics and academics.

Alexander Baron has been the subject of essays by Iain Sinclair and Ken Worpole.

In 2019 the first full-length study of Baron's life and work was published by Five Leaves: So We Live: the novels of Alexander Baron, edited by Susie Thomas, Andrew Whitehead and Ken Worpole.

In November 2023, the London Review of Books published a lengthy article written by Daniel Trilling that discusses Alexander Baron's writing and legacy, with a particular focus on The Lowlife.