Notes on trying
For readers and writers, novels require enormous effort. Why do we persist in seeking meaning in their pages?
ByLiterature
Immerse yourself in the captivating world of literature with our collection of articles, offering literary analysis, book recommendations, author spotlights, and thought-provoking discussions that celebrate the written word.
The hypocrisy of Rishi’s Right
Also this week: the power of the Nativity, and why books are like batteries.
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Paul Lynch: “Nothing kills a book quicker than a writer with a message”
The Booker Prize-winning author on political fiction, the refugee crisis and the “unmistakable” timeliness of his dystopian novel Prophet Song.
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The dark prophet of our times
In The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky dares to ask the question few will: do people truly desire freedom?
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Books of the year 2023
New Statesman writers and guests choose their favourite reading of the year.
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The Booker Prize is becoming irrelevant
The judging panel hasn’t picked an exciting winner in years because there simply hasn’t been one.
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AS Byatt’s hard truths
The novelist, who died last week aged 87, clung fast to realism during a time of faddish post-structuralists.
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Clemens Meyer’s lessons from history
The author on growing up in the GDR, the rise of the far-right and Germany’s “responsibility” for the conflict in…
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The calm of the sleeper train
Also this week: Samuel Beckett’s advice, and the mysteries of time and loss.
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The secrets of Shakespeare’s “stupid”, “grotesque” portrait
The infamous “pudding-faced” Droeshout portrait is widely agreed to be hideous and embarrassing. Is there more to it than meets…
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Why we chose Benjamin Myers’s Cuddy as the Goldsmiths Prize winner
The time-travelling story about faith, nationhood and the north upends preconceptions of the “historical novel”.
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Benjamin Myers wins the 2023 Goldsmiths Prize for “virtuosic” novel Cuddy
The award for “mould-breaking” fiction goes to a millennia-spanning epic about St Cuthbert of Lindisfarne.
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Amy Arnold: “We’re unaccustomed to being pushed up against the inner life of another person”
The author of the Goldsmiths Prize-shortlisted Lori & Joe on walking, suspense and capturing consciousness in prose.
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Adam Thirlwell: “Everyone has become a kind of manic everyday literary critic”
The Goldsmiths-shortlisted author on aliens, revolutionary France and our era of misinformation.
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How John le Carré infiltrated Oxford
When the author was a spy the university was his battlefield.
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H Gareth Gavin: “I’m more interested in stubbornness than in hope”
The Goldsmiths-shortlisted author of Never Was on transness as “a tussle with history”.
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Karl Ove Knausgaard’s thought experiment
The Norwegian novelist doesn’t just want to show his characters’ inner lives, he wants us to take leave of our…
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Kate Briggs: “I took a philosophical vocabulary and offered it to a baby”
The author of the Goldsmiths Prize-shortlisted The Long Form on “patchwork” novels, and why childcare is a political act.
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The darkness of the secret world: Mick Herron and John Gray in conversation
The bestselling author of the Slough House series and the philosopher discuss spy thrillers, the allure of the Cold War…
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Benjamin Myers: “Historical fiction is not all tabards and turnips”
The author of the Goldsmiths Prize-shortlisted Cuddy on being a heathen, and why he wants to see a ghost.
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