FICTION ABOUT POUND
(list compiled by Archie Henderson, November 2017, updated 20 July 2023)
Note: The following list includes works of fiction or fictionalized autobiography in which Pound appears as a character under his own name or under one assigned to him by the author. Some of these works are listed in Ira B. Nadel, "The Lives of Pound," in Ezra Pound in Context, ed. Ira B. Nadel (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 166; Jakub Guziur, "Poundoptikum: Obrazy modernistického básníka v současné próze," Ostrava Journal of English Philology 9.1 (2017): 125-142, free online; and K. K. Ruthven, "The Disclosures of Inscription: Ezra (Loomis) (Weston) Pound," AUMLA: Journal of the Australasian Universities Language and Literature Association 66.1 (Nov. 1986): 159-178. Also consulted were "Index of Real People in Works of Fiction," Complete Review, 2021, free online; M.C. Rintoul, Dictionary of Real People and Places in Fiction (London and New York: Routledge, 1993), pp. 750-751; and Michael D. Sollars, Dictionary of Literary Characters (New York: Facts on File, 2011), p. 1985.
Aiken, Conrad. Ushant: An Essay. New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1952 [Ezra Pound appears as Rabbi Ben Ezra]. Free online.
Aldington, Richard. "Nobody's Baby." Soft Answers. London: Chatto & Windus, 1932 [the character Charlesmagne Cox, a musician, is modeled on Pound]
Aldington, Richard. Death of a Hero. London: Chatto and Windus, 1929 [the character Frank Upjohn, a painter, is modeled on Pound]
Alhadeff, Gini. Diary of a Djinn. New York: Pantheon Books, 2003
Andriacco, Dan, and Kieran McMullen. The Amateur Executioner: Enoch Hale Meets Sherlock Holmes. London: MX Pub., 2013
Armstrong, Michael A. "All We Need of Hell." Poets in Hell. Ed. Janet Morris and Chris Morris. Centerville, Massachusetts: Perseid Press, 2014. 339-359.
Armstrong, Michael A. Bridge Over Hell. Centerville, Massachusetts: Perseid Press, 2012
Babyn, André. "Ezra Pound Loses His Dog." Half A Grapefruit Magazine, October 7, 2019. Free online.
Barthelme, Donald. The King. New York: Harper & Row, 1990
Bass, Cynthia. Maiden Voyage. New York: Villard, 1996
Baxter, Charles. "The Old Fascist in Retirement." A Relative Stranger: Stories. New York: W.W. Norton, 1990. Rpt. in The Story Behind the Story: 26 Writers and How They Work, eds. Peter Turchi and Andrea Barrett; with an introd. by Richard Russo. New York and London: W.W. Norton, 2004, pp. 63-77, followed by Baxter's discussion of the story, pp. 78-82.
Bedard, Michael. The Green Man. Toronto: Tundra Books, 2012
Bergland, Magnus. "Fishing with Ezra." Zyzzyva 17.2 [no. 62] (Fall 2001): 169-174.
Bibesco, H. "Lunch with Uncle Ez." Atlantic Monthly 240.2 (August 1977): 55-58.
Binelli, Mark. Sacco and Vanzetti must Die! Normal, Ill., and London: Dalkey Archive Press, 2006
Burgess, Anthony. Earthly Powers. London: Hutchinson & Co (Publishers) Ltd, 1980
Bush, H. K. The Hemingway Files. St. Louis, MO: Blank Slate Press, 2017
Butler, Robert Olen. The Hemingway Valise. New York: Mysterious Bookshop, 2018
Carlile, Clancy. The Paris Pilgrims: A Novel. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1999
Carter, Lin. "Uncollected Works." The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction 28.3 [no. 166] (Mar. 1965): 93-102. Free online. Rpt. in Carter, Beyond the Gates of Dream (New York: Belmont Books, 1969), pp. 115-133.
Chace, William M. "Ezra Pound: Rapallo, 1927." AfterWord: Conjuring the Literary Dead. Ed. Dale Salwak. Iowa City, IA: U of Iowa P, 2011. 65-75.
Chapman, Con. "Me and Ezra Pound, Back Home Again in Indiana." Gerbil News Network, January 27, 2019. Free online. Rpt. in Chapman, Dead Writers Make More Money (Kindle format, 2020).
Chesterton, G.K. "The Paradise of Thieves." The Pall Mall Magazine 52.244 (Aug. 1913): 151-161 [Ezza Montano as a satirical portrait of Pound and Marinetti]. Free online. Rpt. in Chesterton, The Wisdom of Father Brown (London, New York, Toronto, and Melbourne: Cassell and Company, Ltd, 1914), pp. 26-54. Free online.
Christmas, Gerry. Reports of My Death: Beyond-the-Grave Confessions of North American Writers. Morrisville, NC: Lulu Press, Inc., 2019
Cibulka, Hanns. Sonnenflecken über Pisa. Roman. Leipzig: Reclam Verlag, 2000
Clark, Tom. "The Gang of Eight." Illustrations by Tom Clark. Exquisite Corpse 2.5-7 [no. 11] (May-July 1984): 12-13. Rpt. in The Stiffest of the Corpse: An Exquisite Corpse Reader, ed. Andrei Codrescu (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1989), pp. 95-98. Commented on by James Laughlin ("And now the truth is out about The Pound gang. I suspected all along, but Ez was mum. But he paid the price — 12 years in St. Liz. Wyndam was always a bad apple. He abandoned three little bastards. Joyce was a sot. Hem probably buggered antelopes, or worse. Fordie was a terrible liar, but lovable. A bad lot."). (James Laughlin, "The Truth about the Pound Gang," Exquisite Corpse 3.9-10 [no. 13] (Sept.-Oct. 1985): 3, rpt. in The Stiffest of the Corpse, p. 123).
Clarke, John. The Tournament. London: Robinson, 2003
Claus, Hugo. Een zachte vernieling. Amsterdam: De Bezige Bij, 1988
Cooney, Michael. In the Forest of Tombolo. [Valatie, N.Y.]: Wilderness Hill Books, 2015
Cournos, John. Babel. New York, Boni and Liveright, 1922 [Ezra Pound appears as Tobias Bagg in "Ghost Seeker" (pp. 236-248)]. Free online.
Cournos, John. The Mask. London: Methuen, 1919 [Ezra Pound appears as Tobias Bagg, pp. 291-292]. Free online.
Cournos, John. The Wall. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd.; New York: George H. Doran Company, 1921 [Tobias Bagg is mentioned on p. 159]. Free online.
Coyne, Kevin. "Ezra Pound in his Cage." Show Business. London and New York: Serpent's Tail, 1993
H. D. Asphodel. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1992 [Pound as the poet George Lowndes]
H. D. Bid Me to Live, A Madrigal. New York, Grove Press [1960] [Pound as Lett Barnes]
H. D. HERmione. New York: New Directions, 1981 [written in 1927; Pound as the poet George Lowndes]
H. D. Paint It Today. New York and London: New York University Press, 1992 [written in 1921; Pound as Raymond]
H. D. The Sword Went Out to Sea (Synthesis of a Dream), by Delia Alton. Ed. and Intro. Cynthia Hogue and Julie Vandivere. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2007 [written in 1946-7; Pound as Allen Flint]
Dallas, Ian. The Ten Symphonies of Gorka König. London and New York: Kegan Paul International, 1989
Davenport, Guy. "C. Musonius Rufus." The Hudson Review 29.1 (Spring 1976): 19-44. Rpt. in Davenport, Da Vinci's Bicycle: Ten Stories. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979, pp. 10-37.
Davey, Kevin. Playing Possum. Ipswich, Suffolk: Aaaargh! Press, 2017
Davis, Brian Joseph. "Ezra Pound." Portable Altamont. Toronto: Coach House Books, 2005.
Davis, Lydia. "Claim to Fame #1: My Relationship to Ezra Pound." Miracle Monocle 9 (Spring 2017). Free online.
Degher, Darius. "War Story." Sixfold (Summer 2020): 82-93. Free online and here.
Deric, Vojislav. In Front Of The Sun, Behind The Moon. Xlibris Corporation, 2013
di Canzio, William. Alec. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021
Drew, Cynthia. Red Mansions: A Novel. McKinleyville, California: Fithian Press, 2014
Engel, Howard. Murder in Montparnasse. Woodstock: Overlook Press, 1999
Epstein, Leslie. The Eighth Wonder of the World. New York: Handsel Books/Other Press, 2006 [the character Amos Prince is based in part on Ezra Pound].
Essipoff, Marie Armstrong. My First Husband, by His First Wife. New York: Greenberg, 1932 [a fictional account of her ten-year marriage to the writer Ben Hecht].
Faucher, Kane X. Epigonesia. Annotated by Tom Bradley. Buffalo, New York: BlazeVOX [books], 2010 [Preface by Ebeneezer Pound, 15-19, free online].
"(Fictional) Correspondence between Ezra Pound and George Antheil." Musical Geography, 2015. Free online.
Findley, Timothy. "Daybreak at Pisa: 1945." The Tamarack Review 83-84 (Winter 1982): 90-97. Rpt. as "Daybreak at Pisa" in Findley, Dinner Along the Amazon (Markham, Ont.: Penguin Books Canada, 1984), pp. 218-225. "This is a scene from a work-in-progress: a play about the poet Ezra Pound. The characters are self-explanatory; but perhaps it should be said that the cage referred to is the cage in which Pound was kept at the end of the Second World War by the American military authorities while he was being detained in Italy before being sent to the U.S., where in time they would attempt to bring him to trial as a traitor. In the end he could not be tried because he was found to be legally insane.—T.F." (Dinner Along the Amazon, p. 218). Free online.
Findley, Timothy. Famous Last Words. Toronto: Clarke, Irwin, 1981
Fleming, Thomas. Conquerors of the Sky. New York: Forge, 2003
Fowler, Therese Anne. Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2013
Geerken, Hartmut. Moos 58 überschriften. Norderstedt: Books on Demand, 2013
Gilbert, Bernard. "Poor America!: An Imaginary Conversation. The Exiles." The Double Dealer 8.47 (January 1926): 293-296. Free online. Rpt. as "The Exiles: An Imaginary Conversation by Bernard Gilbert," G.K.'s Weekly 3.74 (August 14, 1926): 387-388. Free online.
Hougan, Jim. Kingdom Come: A Novel of Conspiracy. New York: Ballantine Books, 2000. Translated into Spanish as El último merovingio (Buenos Aires: Planeta, 2004).
Howorth, Lisa. Summerlings: A Novel. New York: Doubleday, 2019
Huddleston, Sisley. Mr. Paname: A Paris Fantasia. London: Butterworth, 1926; New York: George H. Doran Company, 1927
Hunt, Violet, and Ford Madox Hueffer. Zeppelin Nights: A London Entertainment. London: John Lane, The Bodley Head; New York: John Lane Company, 1916 ["the champion of Arkwright" as modeled on Ezra Pound]. Free online.
Hyde, Gregory R. "A Pound of Ezra." Four from the Fringe. Arvada, Colo.: BlueDog Books, 2014
Izzo, David. "The Saga Of Nathan Twine: An Ezra Pound Of Flesh." Parentheses Journal 1 (March 30, 2017). Free online.
Jameson, Harper, with W.A.W. Parker. The Waste Land. Jamul, CA: Level 4 Press, 2020
Jason [John Arne Sæterøy]. The Left Bank Gang. Seattle, Wash.: Fantagraphics Books, 2005
Judge, Michael S. The Scenarists of Europe: A Novel. Victoria, TX: Dalkey Archive Press, 2016
Kessler, Jascha. "An Evening in Babylon." Asylum 4.3 (Fall 1988): 37. Rpt. in Kessler, Siren Songs & Classical Illusions (Kingston, N.Y.: McPherson, 1992), pp. 247-249. Free online (first two pages and last page).
Kessler, Jascha. "Four Literary Encounters" [James Joyce, William Faulkner, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound]. Kayak 46 (Summer 1977): 14-17. The last section was rpt. as "Ezra Pound: A Literary Encounter," Speak Without Interruption, March 14, 2012. Excerpt and here.
Kilpi, Volter. Gulliver's Voyage to Phantomimia. A transcreation by Douglas Robinson. Bucharest: Zeta Books, 2020
Kjærstad, Jan. Oppdageren: roman. Oslo: Aschehoug, 1999. Translated into Danish as Opdageren: roman (København: Samleren, 2000); into Swedish as Upptäckaren (Stockholm: Atlantis, 2001); into Dutch as De ontdekker (Breda: De Geus, 2004); into German as Der Entdecker: Roman (Köln: Kiepenheuer und Witsch, 2004); and into English as The Discoverer (London: Arcadia, 2009).
Lawrence, D.H. The White Peacock. London: William Heinemann, 1911 [Pound satirized as a "young literary fellow who affected the 'Doady' style" (p. 465)]
Leonard, Elmore. "Elmore Leonard." Three Minutes or Less: Life Lessons from America's Greatest Writers. New York and London: Bloomsbury, 2000, pp. 109-111. Free online (first page, last two pages).
Leonard, Elmore. Pronto. New York: Delacorte Press, 1993. Translated into Spanish as Pronto (Barcelona: Ediciones B, 1997).
Lewis, Wyndham. "Doppelgänger: A Story." Encounter 2.1 (Jan. 1954): 23-33
Luiselli, Valeria. Los ingrávidos. México D.F., México: Sexto Piso, 2011. Translated into English as Faces in the Crowd, trans. Christina MacSweeney (London: Granta, 2012).
Lynford, Lloyd. "The Quality of the Affection, Part One." [a fiction based on the life of Olga Rudge]. Granta 122 (Winter 2013), Online Edition. See also here and here.
Lynford, Lloyd. "The Quality of the Affection, Part Two." Granta 122 (Winter 2013), Online Edition. See also here.
Maher, Kerri. The Paris Bookseller. New York: Berkley, 2022
Manning, Guillermo. "David Rattray, Contemplating the Fire." Laid Off NYC, 4.Mar. 2021. Free online.
Martone, Michael. "The Greek Letter in the Bed." Alive and Dead in Indiana: Stories. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1984, pp. 70-80. Also published as "Greek Letter in the Bed," Madison Review 8.2 (1986): 16-22 and in Martone, Fort Wayne Is Seventh on Hitler's List: Indiana Stories (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1990), pp. 74-82, and Martone, Double-Wide: Collected Fiction (Bloomington, IN: Quarry Books, 2007), pp. 59-65.
McAlmon, Robert. The Nightinghouls of Paris. Edited and with an introduction by Sanford J. Smoller. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2007 [Pound as Elihu Law, p. 113].
McDonald, Craig. One True Sentence. New York: Minotaur Books, 2011
McGarry, Jean. "The Last Time." Dream Date: Stories. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002, pp. 225-233. Rpt. in So the Story Goes: Twenty-five Years of the Johns Hopkins Short Fiction Series, eds. John T. Irwin and Jean McGarry; with a foreword by John Barth. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005, pp. 235-242.
McGavran, Fred. "ABD." New English Review (February 2023). Free online.
McLain, Paula. The Paris Wife: A Novel. New York: Ballantine Books, 2011
Miller, Alice. More Miracle than Bird. Portland, Oregon: Tin House Books, 2020
Momus [Nick Currie]. Niche: A Memoir in Pastiche. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020 [Ezra Pound as one of 217 narrators].
Navarro, Justo. El espía. Barcelona: Editorial Anagrama, 2011
Newlove, Donald. Curranne Trueheart. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1986
Núñez, Manuel. El último Sordello. Santo Domingo, República Dominicana: Editorial Letra Gráfica, 2021
O'Connor, Nuala. Nora: A Love Story of Nora and James Joyce. New York: Harper Perennial, 2021
Otxoa, Julia. "El emperador sale en carro de guerra." Variaciones sobre un cuadro de Paul Klee. Hondarribia, Spain: Argitaletxe Hiru, 2002, pp. 13-15.
Parry, Jim. "Prologue: 1971-1972." Podium Literary Journal (92nd Street Y Unterberg Poetry Center) 9 (ca. 2011). Free online.
Peachment, Christopher. Caravaggio: A Novel. London: Picador, 2002
Pérez Alonso, Paula. El gran plan. Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires: Tusquets Editores, 2016
Phelan, Francis. Four Ways of Computing Midnight. New York: Atheneum, 1985
Polek, Nicolette. "Winners." New York Tyrant, July 12, 2017. Free online. Rpt. in Polek, Imaginary Museums: Stories. New York: Soft Skull, 2020.
Posner, Matt. Bullet the Poet. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: Wooden Saviour Press, 1995. A short story about the assassination of Ezra Pound.
Pressburger, Giorgio. Nel regno oscuro. Milano: Bompiani, 2008, p. 71. Translated into French by Marguerite Pozzoli as Dans l'obscur royaume: roman (Arles: Actes Sud, 2011).
Preston, Alex. In Love and War. London: Faber & Faber, 2014
Pron, Patricio. No derrames tus lágrimas por nadie que viva en estas calles. Barcelona: Literatura Random House, 2016. Trans. into English by Mara Faye Lethem as Don't Shed Your Tears for Anyone Who Lives on These Streets. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2020.
Quaife, Darlene Barry. Wildnis. Altona, Manitoba: FriesenPress, 2015 [a novel inspired by the life of Else Lübcke Seel].
Ríos, Julián. Poundemonium. Barcelona: Edicions del Mall, 1986
Risch, Robert. The Paris Book: A Novel About Hemingway's Last Book. Crossroad Press, 2018
Robinson, Daniel. Death of a Century: A Novel of the Lost Generation. New York: Skyhorse Publishing, Inc., 2015
Rodgers, Bob. Devil's Party: Who Killed the Sixties? Victoria, BC: FriesenPress, 2015
Ross, Orna (pen name of Áine McCarthy). A Dance in Time. Dublin: Penguin Ireland, 2008
Ross, Orna. Dancing in the Wind. 2019? "A Historical Literary Dinner with Ezra and Dorothy Pound, WB Yeats, Iseult Gonne and Georgie Hyde Lees." Excerpt.
Ruiz Moreno, Ignacio. Ezra: un tributo a Ezra Pound. La Graja de San Ildefonso (Segovia), Torredembarra (Tarragona): Asociación Cultural OHKA; Ediciones Fides, S.L., 2022
Ruppersberg, Allen. Untitled. 2006. Lithograph with embossing. Published to benefit the 2006 Editions and Artists' Books Fair. "A six-color lithograph with embossing printed by Maurice Sanchez of Derriere l'Etoile Studios, NYC. This work captures an imagined exchange with Henry Miller and Ezra Pound in search of Nathaniel West, letters are inscribed on hotel stationery from the Shangri La Hotel in Santa Monica and the Holiday Inn in Morehead, Kentucky respectively." Free online.
Salven, Ed. In Search of the Illuminati: A Novel. Seattle, WA: Finial, 2009
Salzberg, Charles. "Looking Back." Pif Magazine 122 (July 2007). Free online.
Sardelli, Federico Maria. L'affare Vivaldi. Palermo: Sellerio, 2015
Saroyan, William. "The Great Unwritten American Novel." Inhale & Exhale. New York: Random House, 1936, pp. 249-256. Rpt. in Saroyan, The Gay and Melancholy Flux (London: Faber & Faber, 1937) and Saroyan, Essential Saroyan, ed. with an introd. by William E. Justice (Santa Clara, Calif.: Santa Clara University; Berkeley, Calif.: Heyday Books, 2005), pp. 22-30.
Scholz, Carter. "A Draft of Canto CI." Afterlives: An Anthology of Stories about Life after Death. Eds. Pamela Sargent and lan Watson. New York: Vintage Books, 1986, pp. 257-267. Rpt. in Scholz, Amount to Carry: Stories (New York: Picador, 2003), pp. 102-110.
Scruton, Roger. Fortnight's Anger. Manchester: Carcanet, 1981. Free online.
Selver, Paul. Schooling. London: Jarrolds, 1924 [Ezra Pound appears as Eli Peck, , pp. 133-135, 141-144]
Selver, Paul. Private Life. London: Jarrolds, 1929 [Ezra Pound appears as Eli Peck]
Simmons, Dan. Hyperion Cantos. New York: Doubleday, 1990. ["Ezra Pound" as the name of an early cybrid (a flesh-and-blood construct of the AIs, developed to gather information about human society, based on biographical records and poetry of the poet); a failure, reportedly went mad (see Fred, "Dan Simmons' Hyperion, Pt. 2, an informal glossary," Fred's Place, November 27, 2011, free online).]
Sitwell, Osbert. Those Were the Days: Panorama with Figures. London: Macmillan, 1938 [Pound as the music critic Manfred Moberly or Moberley].
Smith, Rob Magnuson. "How Daniel Zimmerman Kept Ezra Pound Up All Night (II)." Notes from the Underground 3 (March 2009): 10-12
[Spero, Leopold]. Panorama. New York: Hillman-Curl, Inc., 1935
Stead, C.K. Villa Vittoria. Auckland, N.Z.: Penguin Books, 1997
Stephens, M. G. King Ezra. New York: Spuyten Duyvil, 2022
Stern, Richard. Stitch. New York: Harper & Row, 1965. Stern comments on the book in James Marcus's interview with Stern, "Brief Encounter: Richard Stern," House of Mirth, August 2, 2005. Free online. Translated into Spanish by Laura Salas as Stitch (Madrid: Siruela, 2022).
Stuart, Francis. Black List, Section H. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1971
Summers, John. Dylan. London: New English Library, 1970
Tidhar, Lavie. The Lunacy Commission. JABberwocky Literary Agency, Inc., 2021
Vonnegut, Kurt. Mother Night. Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications/Gold Medal Books, 1962 [the character Howard W. Campbell, Jr. may be modeled on Ezra Pound].
Wieland, Liza. "Apparition." Sou'wester (Department of English Language and Literature, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville) 38.1 (Fall 2009): 10ff. Excerpt and here.
Wieland, Liza. Quickening: Stories. Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 2011 ["The Girl with the Radium Eyes," "Pound in Venice"]
Wilkinson, Louis. The Buffoon. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1916 [the character Raoul Root is modeled on Pound]
Williamson, Henry. Lucifer Before Sunrise. London: MacDonald, 1967 [Pound under the name Mauberley].
Wilson, Robert Anton. Schrödinger's Cat Trilogy. New York: Dell Publishing, 1988 [1979]. Free online.
Zilboorg, Caroline. Transgressions. San Bernardino: Writing From Here, 2011
Zukofsky, Louis. Little: For Careenagers. New York: Grossman Publishers, 1970 [Ezra Pound appears as R. Z. Draykup, pp. 121-122, 136, 146-147, 169]. Rpt. by offset in Zukofsky, Collected Fiction, with a Foreword by Gilbert Sorrentino and an Afterword by Paul Zukofsky (Elmwood Park, IL: Dalkey Archive Press, 1990), pp. 1-177.