Thom Jones: the writer who explored madness, art and violence

The writer, who died this week aged 71, began his career late in his tumultuous life, exploding onto the literary scene with his Vietnam story The Pugilist at Rest. Thom Jones, the Illinois-born short-story writer who has died, aged 71, of complications from diabetes, rocketed onto the literary scene in 1991, when the New Yorker […]

Leonard Cohen: giving Nobel to Bob Dylan like ‘pinning medal on Everest’

At an event in Los Angeles to launch his album, the 82-year-old singer-songwriter rows back on claims he was ready to die by saying he now wants to live for ever. On Thursday, Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel prize for literature, sparking controversy among musicians, novelists and fans. That evening in Los Angeles, his […]

After Dylan’s Nobel, how about Springsteen, Mitchell, Cohen?

(CNN)For those who annually pay attention to such things (other writers, mostly), the Nobel Prize in Literature always offers an occasion for often-impassioned chatter over who won and, even more ardently, who didn’t. For every fan who delights over, say, Canadian Alice Munro being acknowledged by Stockholm three years ago for her long career achieving […]