Philip Hoare’s books include biographies of Stephen Tennant and Noël Coward; Wilde’s Last Stand, Spike Island and England’s Lost Eden. ‘Whaling’, published in Granta 99, is taken from his most recent book, Leviathan or, the Whale (Fourth Estate), winner of the 2009 Samuel Johnson Prize for the best work of non-fiction. A BBC documentary, Arena: The Hunt for Moby Dick directed by Adam Low and written and presented by Philip Hoare, was shown in 2008.
‘Even in death, it seemed, whales present us with gargantuan problems.’
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