Han Smith: “Fiction that takes risks shows how electric our minds can be”
The Goldsmiths Prize-shortlisted author on the power of portraits, living language, and Russia’s silenced history.
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Jonathan Buckley: “In my novel, there is no Fine Writing”
The Goldsmiths Prize-shortlisted author on voice, Muriel Spark and why he chose to discard the “writerly” register.
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Neel Mukherjee: “Isn’t all writing a form of appropriation?”
The Goldsmiths Prize-shortlisted author on reclaiming the political novel, the chimera of choice under late capitalism, and Nicki Minaj.
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Mark Bowles: “My book rages against the business-model view of the world”
The Goldsmiths Prize-shortlisted author on the value of art, making himself laugh, and finding characters in the café.
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Lara Pawson: “I like to write with rules. It pushes my mind into strange places”
The Goldsmiths Prize-shortlisted author on making art from objects, and what civil wars taught her about human nature.
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Jilly Cooper’s very English fantasies
Her novels are so absurd they are rarely analysed. Can they tell us anything about Britain and class?
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The making of Barbara Kingsolver
In Holding the Line, the author’s newly republished account of the 1983 Arizona miners’ strike, the novelist and the reporter…
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The resurrection of John le Carré
In Karla’s Choice the late spy novelist’s son Nick Harkaway has revived George Smiley – but he cannot match the…
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Alan Garner’s living tapestry
The novelist’s creative life was woven from a childhood in northern England’s mythic landscape.
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Sally Rooney: “We’re trapped in a cultural moment”
The author of Intermezzo talks to Fintan O’Toole about living with patriarchy, writing good sex, and the post-religious world.
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JG Ballard’s apocalyptic art
In Empire of the Sun, published 40 years ago, the great novelist turned his childhood experiences in a Japanese prisoner-of-war…
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Robert Harris: “Great politicians are like novelists”
The writer on Keir Starmer, Labour’s “grim” inheritance and his desire to reinvent the past.
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On the kindness of book people
Also this week: Yodelling for Kafka and how water connects us all.
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Elif Shafak’s warning from history
There Are Rivers in the Sky is the Turkish novelist at her ambitious and empathetic best.
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The 2024 International Booker shortlist reviewed
From a Korean Scheherazade to Brazilian spirits, the grief of surviving a suicide to the magic of brief encounters.
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Paul Auster’s literary legacy
The novelist, who has died at the age of 77 in Brooklyn, leaves behind a body of work haunted by…
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2024: The year in fiction
This year’s books highlights include new works from Kevin Barry, Sarah Perry and Ali Smith.
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Notes on trying
For readers and writers, novels require enormous effort. Why do we persist in seeking meaning in their pages?
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Italo Calvino’s imaginary worlds
The Italian writer, born 100 years ago, first sought to reflect political reality – and then to redefine it.
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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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