Jonathan Bate: “To me, Shakespeare is the great enabler”
How the acclaimed critic made his journey to popular writing, finds solace in Shakespeare, and took revenge on Cambridge.
By
Leo Robson
Leo Robson is a contributing writer to the New Statesman.
Latest articles
All Articles
What to read in 2022: fiction
The year’s publishing highlights, including novels by Ali Smith, Jonathan Coe and Ottessa Moshfegh.
By
George Saunders: “We’re in this intimate tennis game, the reader and the writer”
The Booker Prize-winning novelist on the Russian masters, the shortcuts to great work, and his new creative writing Substack.
By
Mandy Patinkin on Stephen Sondheim: “I got to be in the room with Shakespeare. Who gets that?”
The actor reflects on the death of the great American composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim.
By
Reviewed in short: New books by Ann Patchett, Olivia Yallop, Duncan Weldon and Phil Burton-Cartledge
These Precious Days by Patchett, Break the Internet by Yallop, Muddling Through by Weldon and Falling Down by Burton-Cartledge.
By
Natasha Brown: “It’s important to celebrate difficult novels”
The author on her Goldsmiths Prize-shortlisted debut, health inequality, and the influence of bell hooks and Jane Austen.
By
Claire-Louise Bennett: “The brink of adulthood is a very uncomfortable time”
The Goldsmiths Prize-shortlisted novelist on style, the problem with “promise”, and why Garibaldi biscuits are the best in the…
By
Bernard Cornwell: “I always had the insane ambition to be a novelist”
The bestselling author on how to start writing, his upbringing with the Peculiar People, and why he brought back…
By
“Our sense of who we are is constantly shifting”: novelist Katie Kitamura on Agatha Christie and being a reluctant critic
The Japanese-American author of Intimacies and A Separation is a strong believer in the malleability of self.
By