Perfect English is the second blackly comic novel by British writer Paul Pickering. It is based on his own experience as an "Internationalista" in the war in Nicaragua against the Contras.The Sunday Express, 24 August 1986 The novel was long-listed for the Booker Prize,"Booker Long List", The Bookseller, 23 August 1986 and received very favourable reviews.The Irish Times, 8 November 1986; Stanley Reynolds, "Pickering is the Michael Frayn of the 1980s", Punch (magazine), 19 October 1985; "Booker Long List", The Bookseller, 23 August 1986; Toby Fitton, The Times Literary Supplement, 31 October 1986; Philip Howard, The Times, 2 October 1986
Pickering was for a while under siege in the Nicaraguan town of Bluefields, where he helped former Baader-Meinhof printer, novelist and playwright, Peter-Paul Zahl, build a Bertolt Brecht youth theatre after his first was destroyed in the invasion of Grenada.The Sunday Express, 24 August 1986 A central concern of the novel is to illustrate how the best intentions can go horribly wrong.
Notes
External links Debrett's People of Today 21 August 2005 Collected reviews Paul Pickering at Simon & Schuster USA. Paul Pickering at Simon & Schuster UK. Paul Pickering's website