‘Jim is as eloquent and elegant with words as with the camera . . . Read it and drink it in!’
Helena Bonham Carter

In Solid Ivory, a carefully crafted mosaic of memories, portraits, and reflections, the Academy Award-winning filmmaker James Ivory tells stories from his remarkable life and career as one of the most influential directors of his time. He often touches on his love affairs, looking back coolly and with unexpected frankness.

From first meeting his collaborator and life partner, Ismail Merchant, at the Indian Consulate in New York to winning an Academy Award at age eighty-nine for Call Me by Your Name, Ivory writes with invariable fluency, wit, and perception about what made him who he is and how he made the movies for which he is known and loved.

Solid Ivory, edited by Peter Cameron, is an utterly winning portrait of an extraordinary life told by an unmatched storyteller.

‘Consistently entertaining’ Guardian

‘James Ivory write[s] with perfect elegance…there’s nothing starchy or uptight about these scenes from his fascinating life’ Sunday Times

From first meeting his collaborator and life partner, Ismail Merchant, at the Indian Consulate in New York to winning an Academy Award at age eighty-nine for Call Me by Your Name; from seeing his first film at age five in Klamath Falls, Oregon, to memories of Satyajit Ray, Jean Renoir, The New Yorker magazine’s film critic Pauline Kael (his longtime enemy), Vanessa Redgrave, J.D. Salinger, George Cukor, Kenneth Clark, Bruce Chatwin, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, and Merchant, Ivory writes with invariable fluency, wit, and perception about what made him who he is and how he made the movies for which he is known and loved.

Solid Ivory, edited by Peter Cameron, is an utterly winning portrait of an extraordinary life told by an unmatched storyteller.