Norman Lewis

In my younger days I lived in a block of flats in the middle of Cardiff. Close by an old woman moved in, a lovely lady, a widow, gentle, friendly, educated, cultured. Her name was Mrs Lewis. One day we were talking and she mentioned that a close relative of hers was a writer. Who's that? I wanted to know, being a bit of a struggling writer myself (still struggling, by the way). "Norman Lewis," she said. I'd never heard of him. "He writes travel books," she said.
That was that. I moved out of the flat and bought a house and never saw Mrs Lewis again.
Then I came across a review of a book by Norman Lewis, a review that praised him to the skies.
"Who is this guy?" I wanted to know.
Not many people had heard of him.
Now someone, Julian Evans, has written a biography of him and a review in The Telegraph has a heading "The life of a great unknown writer."
i.e. He's still unknown.
Yet Auberon Waugh described him as "the greatest travel writer alive, if not the greatest since Marco Polo." And Graham Greene wrote: "I have no hesitation in calling Norman Lewis one of the best writers, not of any particular decade, but of our century."
Amazing. And there I was talking to his sister (or cousin, a close relative anyway) and thinking "he's probably some hack nobody's ever heard of or going to hear of."
Maybe now people will sit up and take a bit of notice of him. I know I will. I shall order one of his travel books in the local library or buy one on Amazon - pronto.