Obituary: Elias Canetti

ELIAS CANETTI deserved a more generous obituary than James Kirkup's (19 August), writes Ritchie Robertson.

Many readers have found Auto da Fe not only readable but unforgettable, as a satire on human greed, obsession and violence in the tradition of Swift and Gogol. Crowds and Power (admirably translated by Carol Stewart) is an original and erudite work whose insights into human nature are more disturbing, and more convincing, than anything offered by sociobiology. Mention should also be made of Canetti's two wives, Veza (who died in 1963) and Hera (who died in 1988). The former was herself a brilliant writer, as the stories in Yellow Street (1990) amply demonstrate.