A Guide To William Boyd’s Work
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1 day ago
Excited to see William Boyd at Chelsea Arts Festival? Here's where to start with his work
Chelsea resident William Boyd splits his time with the sunny south of France – but he was born in even sunnier Ghana and grew up in Nigeria. He’d go on to attend King Charles II’s alma mater Gordonstoun before studying at the University of Glasgow and Jesus College, Oxford, and then lecturing at fellow Oxford University college St Hilda’s. While there, his very first novel would be published: A Good Man in Africa (1981). Flash forward to 2025, and Boyd has a whopping 18 novels to his name, selling more than 2 million copies. And later this year, a 19th will be added to the roster, entitled The Predicament.
Wondering where to start? Ahead of William Boyd’s talk at the inaugural Chelsea Arts Festival later this year, here are five novels to give you a grounding in Boyd’s work. And with three months to go, there’s plenty of time for revision…
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William Boyd: 5 Books To Start With
A Good Man In Africa (1981)
Where better to start than the beginning? Boyd’s debut novel, A Good Man in Africa, was published in 1981, and introduced the world to his vivid writing style and evocative descriptions of far-flung places. A Good Man in Africa takes us to Kinjanja (a fictionalised Nigeria) where bumbling British diplomat Morgan Leafy loathes his job and his country (he does, however, love women and alcohol). But when he is tasked with monitoring Kinjanja’s frontrunning politician, he spies an opportunity to achieve professional recognition – and perhaps reassignment. What he doesn’t anticipate are blackmail, venereal disease, bribery and a dead body – all signs things aren’t going entirely to plan…
Any Human Heart (2002)
Boyd’s best-loved novel is undoubtedly his ninth, Any Human Heart. A bildungsroman – a form Boyd first sampled in The New Confessions (1987), and returned to in Sweet Caress (2015) and The Romantic (2022) – it spans 1923 to 1991, observing the whole storied life of Logan Gonzago Mountstuart from his school days to his death via journal entries. A writer, Logan meets Hemingway in Paris and Woolf in London, and works as an art dealer in 1960s New York. There’s left wing terrorism, failed marriages, alcoholism, poverty and more across eight decades, all interwoven with minutely evocative descriptions of 20th century moments.
The Blue Afternoon (1993)
Boyd is renowned for his richly immersive globe-trotting novels, which evoke such a sense of place you’ll be certain he lived there for years to capture it. Not so: his warm-hearted, mostly-Manila-set novel The Blue Afternoon captures the Filipino capital masterfully despite Boyd never having visited before penning it. Set in the early 20th century, the novel centres on Dr Salvador Carriscant, a celebrated surgeon who helps the police find a murderer. But The Blue Afternoon is also a love story – one of Boyd’s best.
Nat Tate: An American Artist 1928–1960 (1998)
Fans of the more experimental should pick up Boyd’s faux biography of artist Nat Tate, which duped the world – for a couple of weeks, anyway. Returning to the whole-life form of The New Confessions (1987), which masquerades as an autobiography, Nat Tate is the biography of an abstract impressionist painter who destroyed 99 percent of his work and leapt to his death off the Staten Island ferry in 1960. He was also completely fabricated by Boyd, who enlisted David Bowie and Gore Vial to bring gravitas to his prank. He revealed the truth at his London book launch, but that was after the art world’s glitterati had claimed to know Tate’s work – or at least refused to admit they hadn’t heard of this apparently important artist.
Gabriel’s Moon (2024)
Gabriel’s Moon is Boyd’s most recent novel and his fourth foray into spy literature. He whisks us back to the dawn of the 1960s when young travel journalist Gabriel Dax finds himself on assignment in Africa when a deadly conspiracy emerges. The Democratic Republic of the Congo’s first prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, is overthrown and murdered after just 10 weeks in power – and Gabriel was one of the last people to interview him. Returning to London, Gabriel finds his recordings of his interview with Lumumba accidentally bear witness to the conspiracy surrounding his murder, and he is drawn into the shadowy world of double crossings and cold war spy craft.
Gabriel’s Moon is a highly praised standalone novel, and a must read if you’re interested in Boyd’s upcoming work, The Predicament, when readers will be reintroduced to accidental spy Gabriel Dax, who is this time in Guatemala. (Penguin, 4 September 2025)
Already A Fan?
William Boyd will speak at Chelsea Arts Festival on 19 September 2025 at Cadogan Hall (5 Sloane Terrace, London SW1X 9DQ), giving fans old and new the chance to hear all about the author’s process and inspiration. Tickets will be on sale very soon, and you can stay up to date with all Chelsea Arts Festival news at chelseaartsfestival.com
