John Mulgan


John Alan Edward Mulgan was a New Zealand writer, journalist and editor, and the elder son of journalist and writer Alan Mulgan. His influence on New Zealand literature and identity grew in the years after his death. He is best known for his novel Man Alone.

Life

Gifted both academically and athletically, his New Zealand secondary education was at Wellington College and Auckland Grammar School. Mulgan studied at Auckland University College, before attending Merton College, Oxford from November 1933. He was awarded a first in English in 1935, and in July 1935 took up a position at the Clarendon Press.
Mulgan held leftist political views and was alarmed by the rise of fascism in Europe and the response of the British government to it. In 1936, he was an observer for the New Zealand government at the League of Nations in Geneva. During this time, he wrote a series of articles on foreign affairs, titled "Behind the Cables", for the Auckland Star newspaper.
His view that war in Europe was inevitable led Mulgan to join the Territorial Army in 1938, and he was made second lieutenant in an infantry regiment.
Posted to the Middle East in 1942, Mulgan was promoted to major and made second-in-command of his regiment. He saw action at El Alamein and fought alongside the New Zealand Expeditionary Force. He was impressed by the calibre of his compatriots and found meeting New Zealanders after being in England for so long to be a kind of "homecoming". He left the Royal West Kents Regiment after reporting his last Colonel as quite incompetent.
In 1943, Mulgan joined the Special Operations Executive and was sent to Greece in September to coordinate guerrilla action against the German forces. He was awarded the Military Cross for his actions. After the German withdrawal in 1944, Mulgan oversaw British compensation to Greek families who had helped the Allied forces.

Death

On the day following Anzac Day 1945, Mulgan's body was discovered in his hotel room in Cairo. An investigation led by SOE and the British miliary determined that he had died the previous day of an overdose of morphine. The initial inquiry could not reach agreement, but a coronial inquiry by the British Consulate General recorded a verdict of suicide. The verdict was supported by a typed and signed letter written by Mulgan to his commanding officer, Dolbey, describing his intention to commit suicide and asking the officer to create a cover story for his family, suggesting possible causes of either an accidental overdose of morphine or a sudden death from fever. Mulgan also wrote two farewell letters to women friends. The reason Mulgan gives for his suicide in his letter to Dolbey is that he has discovered he is suffering from throat cancer and does not want to live out his remaining time as an invalid. After his death, there was no medical evidence found for Mulgan's stated belief that he had cancer. Whilst most scholars accept the explanation of suicide, and attribute it to either unknown causes or Mulgan's deteriorating mental health, some people have speculated his death may not have been self-inflicted or may have occurred as a result of his involvement with SOE.
Mulgan is buried at Heliopolis military cemetery in Cairo. He was survived by his wife Gabrielle and son Richard.

Published works

Poems of Freedom The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Literature by Sir Paul Harvey The Emigrants: Early Travellers to the Antipodes Man Alone Republished 1960 2002 & 2021 Report on Experience
  • and USA Introduction to English Literature
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Other Works

  • see