Actor Bill Nighy is set to lead tributes to the late author Sir Martin Amis at a star-studded remembrance service.
Celebrities have gathered to pay their respects at a service for the author including Vogue editor Anna Wintour, journalist Rachel Johnson, celebrity chef Nigella Lawson and Pink Floyd frontman David Gilmour.
Nighy is a devotee to Sir Martin’s writing and will deliver readings from his works during the service at St Martin-in-the-Fields in London.
Sir Martin, one of the most significant British authors in the second half of the 20th century, died in 2023 at age 73 and was posthumously knighted for services to literature.
Bill Nighy is a devotee to Sir Martin’s writing and will deliver readings from his works during the service at St Martin-in-the-Fields
Rachel Johnson Martin Amis memorial service, St Martin-in-the-Fields Church, Trafalgar Square
Pink Floyd singer David Gilmour and Polly Samson Martin Amis memorial service on June 10
Vogue editor Anna Wintour pictured at the star-studded memorial service today for the well-loved author
Alongside his children, is his widow, novelist Isabel Fonesca. Other people attending the service include fellow writers Ian McEwan and James Fenton, The Telegraph reported.
Also, Novelist Zadie Smith is set to contribute to the service as well as journalist Tina Brown, whom Sir Marting was involved with romantically during his time at Oxford.
Sir Salman Rushdie, a friend and fellow novelist, did not attend but provided a written tribute.
He said: ‘Only Martin sounded like Martin Amis, and it was unwise to try and imitate him.
Nigella Lawson pictured in a black suit and wearing sunglasses while attending the memorial
Sir Martin’s widow and fellow novelist Isabel Fonseca pictured arriving at her late husband’s memorial service
Fellow writers Ian McEwan and his wife, children’s author Annalena McAfee, arrive for the service
British social commentator and founder of the Free Speech Union Toby Young spotted arriving
Novelist Zadie Smith pictured dressed in black as she attends the service for Sir Martin Amis
‘He used to say that what he wanted to do was leave behind a shelf of books – to be able to say ‘from here to here, it’s me’.
‘His voice is silent now. His friends will miss him terribly. But at least we have the shelf.’
Sir Martin died of oesophageal cancer on Friday at his home in Florida, the same disease that claimed his best friend and fellow writer Christopher Hitchens in 2011.
He published 15 novels including The Rachel Papers in 1973 and his well-regarded memoir Experience, published in 2000.
In his later work, he explored Stalin’s atrocities, the war on terror and the legacy of the Holocaust.
He once said of his work: ‘What I’ve tried to do is to create a high style to describe low things: the whole world of fast food, sex shows, nude mags.’
Former creative director of the BBC Alan Yentob spotted arriving for the memorial service in London
Japanese-British novelist and screenwriter makes his arrivial for the memorial service
Sir Martin Amis (pictured) published 15 novels throughout his career, gaining prominence in the 1980s and 90s
Sir Salman Rushdie, a friend and fellow novelist, did not attend but provided a written tribute.. (Martin Amis pictured at the British Book Awards in 1996 with his second wife Isabel Fonseca and writer Salman Rushdie)
He never won the Booker Prize but was shortlisted for the award in 1991 for Time’s Arrow and longlisted in 2003 for Yellow Dog.
His final novel, Inside Story published in 2020, was a ‘novelized autobiography’ that examined his friendship with Hitchens and his relationship with his father, the novelist Kingsley Amis.
Mr Amis said having a famous writer for a father was a blessing and curse but acknowledged he’d have been in a ‘very different position’ if his father had been a schoolteacher.
While a good friend to Christopher Hitchens, Mr Amis said in 2006 that ‘agnostic is the only respectable position, simply because our ignorance of the universe is so vast’ that atheism is ‘premature’.