The meteoric rise and mysterious silence of the man who defined 1920s glamour.
In short: Born Dikran Kouyoumdjian, Michael Arlen became a literary sensation in 1920s London with his satirical romances. Yet, after achieving immense wealth and fame, the author of The Green Hat retreated into political writing, eventually suffering a decade of writer's block before his death in 1956.
Born in 1895 to an Armenian merchant family in Bulgaria, Dikran Sarkis Kouyoumdjian eventually settled in England. After a brief, aimless stint as a medical student in Edinburgh, he moved to London in 1913 to pursue a literary career. By 1920, he had adopted the name Michael Arlen, a persona that would soon dominate the cultural landscape. His style, characterized by exotic, colloquial flourishes, became known as 'Arlenesque'.
Arlen’s breakthrough arrived in 1924 with the publication of The Green Hat, a novel detailing the life of the tragic femme fatale Iris Storm. The book was a massive success, spawning Broadway adaptations and Hollywood films. Arlen became a fixture of the era's smart society, even famously providing financial support to Noël Coward when his play The Vortex faced collapse. His influence was such that F. Scott Fitzgerald reportedly recounted the plots of all Arlen's books to Ernest Hemingway, calling him a man to watch.
Despite his early triumphs, Arlen’s later career saw a shift toward darker themes and political commentary. His 1933 novel, Man's Mortality, explored dystopian themes, though it was often unfavorably compared to Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. As the Second World War approached, Arlen’s status as a naturalized British citizen was questioned, leading him to move to America in 1941. He settled in New York in 1946, where he spent his final decade struggling with severe writer's block until his death from cancer in 1956.
Arlen remains a complex figure, remembered both for his glittering romances and his later, more somber works. While his popularity waned, his legacy persisted through his creation of the gentleman sleuth 'the Falcon' and his enduring influence on contemporaries. His son, Michael J. Arlen, later explored the complexities of his father's life and his complicated relationship with his Armenian heritage in books like Passage to Ararat.
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- Summary by Intellect · source: Michael Arlen
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