Al Alvarez has been at the centre of British literary life for nearly 40 years. His 1969 study of suicide, The savage god, is recognised as a classic. As poetry editor of The Observer in its heyday, Alvarez knew, influenced and was friends with an extraordinary array of writers - Auden, Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, John Berryman (who, like Plath, committed suicide), John le Carre (his next-door neighbour), and many more.