Literature got to the fragility of the self before philosophy and science (psychology). Exactly when is hard to say because these things come incrementally from afar, and there are many literatures in this world
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Language is the thing that unites the public and the private, and it works at least a little differently in each sphere
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I have been a republican since my teens, and this conviction is by now so deeply imbued that the recent demise of a British monarch has evoked no emotion other than a desire to avoid mass media completely
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The time has come, I think, for me to get back to the day job, so to speak: that is to advertising our books rather than other people’s
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On the suggestion of something dark and evil in male sexuality, as found in the similarities between Tolstoy’s The Kreutzer Sonata and Sàbato’s The Tunnel
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A story that will hopefully rekindle your faith in human nature even after forty years of reheated nineteenth-century laissez-faire.
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When he died at the age of forty-six, George Orwell left a busy life behind him
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Writers are like every other profession – a mixed bunch – perhaps even more so than others
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On the war in Ukraine, global conflict, and the West
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Showing a poet my work, she cried, “Oh but it’s traditional! There’s a metre.” and returned it as though it was contagious
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We cannot doubt the truth that the cultural difference between two generations in the same country is greater than the cultural difference between two European countries in the same generation
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The story of Mimmo Lucano and his community of asylum-seekers in the dying village of Riace
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Some time ago a colleague of mine told me not to post or tweet about political things, as I was wont to do
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On Stewart Ennis, his novel Blessed Assurance, and the playwright’s tone and narrative
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At the risk of revealing an obsession, a return to the question of empire
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In Moon Country, we see a great example of how an experienced playwright approaches novel-writing in a very different way, and how it shows – sometimes in unexpected ways
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For most of known history, the majority of society worked the land, a small minority were artisans in towns, and an even smaller minority were the wealthy who owned the land
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Literature may have played a role in uncovering the evils of empire, and more recently, in reminding us of recent and ancient crimes
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