In Conversation with Andrew McMillan

Andrew McMillan is a Manchester-based poet and lecturer exploring the intersections of masculinity, sexuality, class and violence. His debut collection physical (2015) won the Guardian First Book Award – the first poetry collection to do so – as well as the Eric Gregory and Northern Writers’ awards. His most recent collection, playtime (2018), widens his poetic gaze, observing how his previous […]

Alan Johnson and Harriet Harman listed on The Guardian’s guide to the best political memoirs

Some of the most interesting recent political autobiographies come from those who might have led their parties but never did, and thus are less obsessed with creating legacies. Alan Johnson’s extraordinary trilogy, starting with This Boy and ending with The Long and Winding Road, revealed a natural writer with a remarkable life story to tell (orphaned at 13, he […]

Prince Albert: The Man Who Saved the Monarchy by A.N. Wilson Review

Of all the people Prince Andrew might blame for his current predicament — the press, the US Department of Justice, sundry young women, God forbid, himself — it is unlikely that he is railing against his great-great-great-grandfather Prince Albert, and yet it is that paragon of princes, born 200 years ago last week, who is […]

BORIS JOHNSON’S BREXIT CARNAGE BY SAM KNIGHT

The symbolism of the physical state of the Palace of Westminster, where Parliament meets, was almost too crude this week. Big Ben was sheathed in layers of scaffolding and black construction netting. Great sections of the old complex were barely visible under plastic sheets. Inside, corridors were cluttered with plywood and temporary construction barriers. It looked […]

Bernardine Evaristo shortlisted for The Booker Prize 2019

It is no surprise that this year’s Booker shortlist is a surprise. Second-guessing the judges is always a fruitless task and a cluster of fancied names have not made the cut – the critics’ tip Deborah Levy and the much fancied Max Porter and Kevin Barry being among them. The two biggest names though, Margaret Atwood […]

‘I want to put presence into absence’: Bernardine Evaristo’s Interview with The Guardian

The British writer on bringing more black female characters into fiction, her experimental style, and exploring non-mainstream history. Bernardine Evaristo is the award-winning British-Nigerian author of eight books. Born in London in 1959, she is professor of creative writing at Brunel University London and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Her new novel Girl, Woman, Other spans […]