My father, John Noone, who has died aged 89, was a writer probably best known for his first novel, The Man With the Chocolate Egg, in which the main character, a British soldier, sits on a London bus, exhausted and disoriented, and pulls the pin out of a hand grenade.
Published in 1966, when John was just 30, the book was joint winner of the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize in 1967. He continued with his writing for 60 more years, while for many years making his living as an English lecturer at academic institutions around the world.
Born in Darlington, County Durham, John was the third of the six children of Michael Noone, an industrial engineer, and Miriam (nee Knox), a homemaker. He was educated at St Mary’s grammar school and then did his national service in the Durham Light Infantry before graduating with an English degree from King’s College, Newcastle (now Newcastle University). While in the army he had served in the Suez canal zone, and in 1961 he returned to Egypt to work as an English lecturer at Alexandria University.
From that point onwards, apart from a couple of years in the late 1960s, John lived outside the UK, lecturing on English literature and European culture under the aegis of the British Council, including at the University of Benghazi in Libya and the University of Kyoto, Japan.
His second novel, The Night of Accomplishment (1974), was written in Japan following the break-up of his decade-long marriage to my mother, Kate Turnbull. Later in Kyoto he met Isabelle Forani, a francophone Belgian. They lived together in France from 1980 until John’s death, and married in 1994.
During the 80s John turned to writing nonfiction with The Man Behind the Iron Mask (1988), a piece of research that aimed to discover the identity of a mysterious prisoner of state held at the instructions of Louis XIV of France.
His later works included the two volume Turtle Tortoise, Image and Symbol (2013), examining the use of images and symbols of turtles and tortoises from early times, and three psychological thrillers, O Fortuna (2016), Anteros (2017) and Culler of Beasts (2019). A collection of his short stories, Like As Not, was published in 2018.
He is survived by Isabelle, by me, and by two stepdaughters, Nochenka and Cynthia, from Isabelle’s previous marriage.
