A Modern Don Juan: Cantos for These Times by Divers Hands

by Andy Croft, Nigel Thompson

'I hope it is no crime / To laugh at all things', wrote Byron in Don Juan; 'for I wish to know / What, after all, are all things but a show' Two hundred years after Byron turned his back on the hypocrisy and cant of his native England, fifteen contemporary poets pay homage to Byron s greatest satirical creation by writing a new Don Juan for our own age of cant. A Modern Don Juan follows the sexual adventures of Byron's picaresque anti-hero in the twenty-first century. Mixing Low Comedy and High Seriousness, the book follows night-club DJ Donald Johnson as he stumbles from one romantic disaster to the next. Along the way, the authors pass comment on the customs and common-sense of the contemporary world. Donny seeks his fortune in Cameron's Britain, Berlusconi's Italy and Sydney's clubland. He is a London restaurant critic, a Brussels Eurocrat and a reality TV celeb. If you are quick you can catch him in Greece, Budapest, Central America, a prison cell even in Outer Space. He is indeed new Don Juan for the twenty-first century.

360 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2014

About the author

Andy is an expert in his field and has written more than 30 books about sport for Hodder. He teaches poetry and creative writing classes, and has also written bios of Sol Campbell, Amir Khan, Lewis Hamilton and Kelly Holmes for Barrington Stoke. He lives in Middlesbrough.