Interviews
Interview with a writer: John Banville
The salubrious surroundings of the Waldorf Hotel seem like a very apt setting to interview a master of style and…
Interview with a writer: Jaron Lanier
In his new book, Who Owns The Future?, computer scientist, Jaron Lanier, argues that as technology has become more advanced,…
Interview with a writer: Lars Iyer
People call Lars Iyer a ‘cult author,’ which is odd, because almost every paper to have reviewed him from here…
Interview with a writer: Jared Diamond
In his latest book The World Until Yesterday, Jared Diamond analyses the behavioral differences between human beings in tribal stateless-societies…
Interview with a writer: John Ashbery
John Ashbery is recognized as one of the most eminent American poets of the twentieth-century. He also been called America’s…
Google maps North Korea
Google has mapped North Korea. The Washington Post has useful selection of before and after images. Compare the images for…
Secrecy and the State in Modern Britain
In his new book Classified: Secrecy and The State In Modern Britain, Dr Christopher Moran gives an account of the…
Meeting J.G. Ballard
In the programme Frost on Interviews that was recently rebroadcasted by BBC Four, the distinguished journalist, David Frost, attempted to…
Wole Soyinka: Boko Haram must be destroyed
Born in 1934 in Nigeria, Wole Soyinka is the author of more than twenty plays, ten volumes of poetry, two…
Sharon Olds’ fear and self-loathing
Since the publication of her debut collection, Satan Says in 1980, which was awarded the inaugural San Francisco Poetry Center…
Interview: Ciaran Carson on translating Rimbaud
Ciaran Carson was born in Belfast in 1948, and published his first book of poetry, The New Estate, in 1976.…
Cult status: an interview with Mike McCormack
Mike McCormack published his first book of short stories Getting it in the Head in 1996. The debut earned him…
Route to conflict? David Priestland’s Merchant, Soldier, Sage
David Priestland is worried. Towards the end of his recently published book Merchant, Soldier, Sage, he warns: ‘[The crash of]…
Michael Gove: why I’ll never run for leader
Today’s Guardian magazine runs a Michael Gove profile, colouring him blue on the cover as if to alert readers to the…
Interview: James Lasdun’s art
James Lasdun published his first book of short stories The Silver Age in 1985. The debut won him The Dylan…
Interview – Patrick Hennessey, Kandak: Fighting with the Afghans
“It always struck me that it was a much easier war to support the closer you got to it,” says…
Interview: Mary Robinson
In 1990 Mary Robinson became Ireland’s first female president. As a progressive liberal, Robinson seemed a very unlikely candidate for…
Shelf Life: Kate Tempest
Kate Tempest started out as a 16-year-old rapper in London. Now she performs the spoken word, reading her poetry, rhymes and prose…
Roger McGough interview
As Roger McGough approaches 75, his latest collection of poems As Far As I Know shows him writing with the…