Clive James OA CBE 1939 - 2019

Pembroke College was saddened to learn of the death of the writer and broadcaster, Clive James (1964).

Born in Sydney, Australia in 1939, he came up to Pembroke to read for a BA in English in 1964.

During his time at Pembroke, he represented the College on University Challenge and was an active member of Cambridge Footlights, serving as its president in 1967.

He was made an Honorary Fellow of the College in 2010.

Lord Smith of Finsbury, Master of Pembroke College, said: “Pembroke was Clive James’ college, and we were proud to count him amongst our most distinguished alumni. We were even more proud, a few years ago, to host the launch of his most recent and wonderful collection of poems. We mourn his loss with great sadness. He truly lit up the world.”

In an interview with ABC RN Breakfast show, Dr Mark Wormald, Fellow and Director of Studies in English, spoke about Clive James' writing:

"I’ve been looking at the first page of [his 2007 book] ‘Cultural Amnesia’, and this first sentence: 'In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Vienna was the best evidence that the most accommodating and fruitful ground for the life of the mind, can be something more broad than a university campus.’ Clive's mind, the life of Clive’s mind, was as broad as it can possibly be.

"I was astonished by his capacity to range as broadly, as pithily, to turn a well-turned phrase, as he said ‘and hold it up to the light, then turn it again’. About this huge range of figures from Golo Mann to Goebbels, from Eugenio Montale, to composers from across Europe.

"On every front he was a kind of giant, but very wry and witty with it. He didn’t it take himself very seriously, but he took the life of a culture, but the whole range of culture for high culture to popular culture, he took it in his stride and with real relish. A really unique figure."

His funeral service was held in Pembroke College Chapel on Wednesday 27th November.

Clive James pictured in Pembroke Old Library in 2016, at the official launch of his new books, Collected Poems, 1958-2015 and Gate of Lilacs: a verse commentary on Proust.

Photographer: Natalie Glasberg