Colm Tóibín: “I think, ‘I must be deep.’ Then I think, ‘Stop this nonsense, get on with the story’”
The Irish novelist on writing after chemotherapy, growing up gay “in the 19th century”, and winning the 2021 David Cohen Prize for Literature.
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Leo Robson
Leo Robson is the lead fiction reviewer for the New Statesman.
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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.
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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…
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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…
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“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.
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Richard Powers’s Bewilderment is full of bold ideas – but strays into earnestness
Neuroscience, astrobiology and ecocide mix in the American author’s Booker-shortlisted new novel.
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Reviewed in short: New books by Michael Brooks, Parag Khanna, John Callow and David Hare
The Art of More by Michael Brooks, Move by Parag Khanna, The Last Witches of England by John Callow…
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Reviewed in Short: New books by Helen Carr and Suzannah Lipscomb, Kai-Fu Lee and Chen Qiufan, James Dyson and Sarah Hall
What is History, Now? by Carr and Lipscomb, AI 2041 by Lee and Qiufan, Invention by Dyson and Burntcoat…
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Reviewed in short: New books by Mary Hollingsworth, Jessica Nordell, Michaela Coel and Michael Bracewell
Conclave 1559 by Mary Hollingsworth, The End of Bias by Jessica Nordell, Misfits by Michaela Coel and Souvenir by…
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