Bryan Stanley William Johnson (5 February 1933 – 13 November 1973)[1] was an English experimental novelist, poet and literary critic.
"[5] Johnson left school when he was 16 years old to work variously as an accounting clerk for a building company and for a baker, as a bank junior and as a clerk at Standard Oil, but taught himself Latin in the evenings, attended a year's pre-university course at Birkbeck College, and with this preparation, managed to pass the university entrance exam for King's College London in 1956.
[7] After graduating with a 2:2 degree in 1959, he worked as a private tutor and supply teacher in Surrey, while writing increasingly experimental and often acutely personal novels.
In his early years he collaborated on several projects with a close friend and fellow writer, Zulfikar Ghose, with whom he produced a joint collection of stories, Statement Against Corpses.
Like Johnson's early stories, at least superficially, his first two novels, Travelling People (1963) and Albert Angelo (1964) initially appear relatively conventional in plot terms.
The Unfortunates (1969) was published in a box with no binding (readers could assemble the book any way they liked, apart from the chapters marked "First" and "Last", which indicated preferred terminal points.
Johnson led and associated with a loose circle of experimental authors in 1960s Britain, who included Alan Burns, Eva Figes, Rayner Heppenstall, Ann Quin, Stefan Themerson, Wilson Harris and others.
Many contributed to London Consequences, a novel consisting of a palimpsest of chapters passed between a range of participating authors, edited by Margaret Drabble and Johnson.
Johnson also made numerous experimental films, published poetry, and wrote reviews, short stories and plays.
"[13] Johnson's following at the time of his death was small, but enthusiastic; he quickly acquired a posthumous cult following, helped by a critically acclaimed film adaptation in 2000 of the last novel of his to appear in his lifetime, Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry (1973).