Time, A Falconer: A Study of Sarban

In this biographical study Mark Valentine enables us to understand more of John William Wall (1910-1989), the diffident, compassionate, highly intelligent and sensitive man who wrote under the pseudonym Sarban.

Until recently very little was known about the writer. His three published books, Ringstones (1951), The Sound of His Horn (1952) and The Doll Maker (1953) hinted at a complex personality, and the little available information has only added to the fascination he has exercised. The Sound of His Horn, a cult classic, explores the possibilities of what would have happened if Germany had won World War Two, and was much admired by Kingsley Amis. This science fiction fantasy has been often reprinted, but until recently all that readers were allowed to know of Sarban was that he 'worked in the East and longed for England'.

Mark Valentine, however, has delved into the author's own archive and is now able to present us with this study and introductory biography of Sarban. Valentine follows Wall from his working-class roots in Yorkshire through a scholarship to Cambridge University and a distinguished diplomatic career in the Foreign Office and subsequent postings in Cairo, Jedda, Tabriz, Isfahan, Casablanca, Salonika and Paraguay. After leaving the Foreign Office in 1967, Wall worked at GCHQ Cheltenham before his final retirement. And all through his working life Sarban wrote fascinating and subtle fiction of the fantastic.