Category: Literature
Jonathan Raban: I felt pretty happy that I was still alive
The author on his recovery after a stroke and his fears for a dis-United States. On 11 June 2011, a few days before his 69th birthday, Jonathan Raban was sitting with his daughter Julia at home in Seattle. He’d felt foggy and out of sorts since waking. Having reheated a casserole, he looked down to […]
Out from the shadows: why cruising had a cultural moment in 2016
From an acclaimed novel to an immersive theater experience, the divisive sexual practice made a comeback in art amid heightened anxiety over sex and gender. On a Saturday afternoon shortly before Christmas, I found myself in the dungeon-like basement of a sex club in Manhattan to see a site-specific performance called Adonis Memories. It was […]
Richard Adams obituary
Author of the classic 1970’s novel Watership Down, the allegorical tale of a colony of rabbits. Richard Adams, who has died aged 96, was the author of one of the most successful books of the 1970s. Published in 1972, Watership Down, Adams’ story about a colony of rabbits travelling across the country in search of […]
Patti Smith falters in Stockholm tribute to an absent Bob Dylan
Representing the Nobel laureate at the prize-giving, the US singer admitted nerves in performance at Swedish academy. A very nervous Patti Smith initially stumbled through A Hard Rains A-Gonna Fall in Stockholm on Saturday in a performance given to mark Bob Dylans Nobel prize for literature. Making the award, Horace Engdahl, a Swedish literary historian […]
Stephen King attacks Bob Dylan’s Nobel prize knockers
Guitar-playing horror legend speaks out against literary authors such as Gary Shteyngart and Irvine Welsh who have scorned the singer’s award. Stephen King has come to the defence of Bob Dylan’s Nobel prize for literature, accusing those who oppose the award of sour grapes. According to King, no other musician has had such an impact […]