Paul Ableman was an English playwright and novelist. He was the writer of much erotic fiction and novelisations, and a freelance writer who turned his hand to non-fiction.

Ableman was born in Leeds

Leeds

Leeds is a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. In 2001 Leeds' main urban subdivision had a population of 443,247, while the entire city has a population of 798,800 , making it the 30th-most populous city in the European Union.Leeds is the cultural, financial and commercial...

, Yorkshire, into a Jewish family, and brought up mainly in New York. He settled in Hampstead

Hampstead

Hampstead is an area of London, England, north-west of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Camden in Inner London, it is known for its intellectual, liberal, artistic, musical and literary associations and for Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland...

, London in the United Kingdom. His father was a tailor and his mother was a small-time actress. Ableman was married 2 times, first to Tina Carrs-Brown in 1958, they had 1 son, then divorced; then to Sheila Hutton-Fox in 1978, they had 1 son, she was married to Paul until his death in 2006.

Ableman was of Jewish ancestry, Russian on his paternal side and German on his maternal side.

Novels

• I Hear Voices (1958)
• As Near As I Can Get (1962)
• Vac (1968)
• The Twilight of the Vilp (1969)
• Bits: Some Prose Poems (1969, poems)
• The Mouth and Oral Sex (1969, psychology)
• Tornado Pratt (1978, novel)
• Porridge: The Inside Story (1979)
• Shoestring (1979)
• Shoestring's Finest Hour (1980)
• County Hall (1982, novel)
• The Doomed Rebellion (1983)
• Straight Up: The Autobiography of Arthur Daley (1991)
• Waiting for God (1994)

Plays

• Green Julia (1966)
• Tests (playlets) (1966)
• Blue Comedy: Madly in Love, Hawk's Night (1968)

External links

• Obituary in The Independent, 31 October 2006
• Paul Ableman in The Playwrights Database
• Obituary in The Guardian, 8 December 2006