BOOKS: INTERVIEW Terry Eagleton - Culture and Society ; the Man Who `Sexed Up' Literary Theory Believes That Postmodernism Is Dead. Christina Patterson Talks to Terry Eagleton about Love, Sex, God - and the Global Crisis. Portrait by Niall McDiarmid TERRY EAGLETON BIOGRAPHY

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"YOU WON'T believe what happened last night!" Terry Eagleton announces, with a twinkly smile that is clearly something of a trademark. He had, it turns out, been walking along the Strand, after seeing Michael Frayn's new play, Democracy, when he was stopped by a young man with a Yorkshire accent. "Where's that David Blunkett?" the youth demanded. Eagleton suggested politely that he try the Home Office."No, no," insisted the youth, "the one in the glass cage."

It is a strangely surreal scenario, but somehow not surprising: the former Thomas Warton Professor of English at Oxford being asked for directions to the weirdest show in town, the sort of narcissistic, …