Birth. “A detaching, a loosening of something, then the pain of it.” A small, curled and crinkled creature is wrested from that pain. But then, instead of the long-awaited cry of a... Read more »
The plot of A Little Bit Bad sounds like the setup for a joke: “Like, this white lady lusting after her hot Chicano roofer?” Perdita Jungfrau, the narrator, is describing her own... Read more »
At 33, the French writer Édouard Louis has already seen all seven of his slim novels translated into English. In his breakout debut, The End of Eddy (2017), and again in Change... Read more »
The last day of maternity leave, and an unnamed mother of two decides to stage a “yes day”, full of treats and good feelings. Of course it does not go according to... Read more »
Washington Augustus Roebling, or “Wash”, was the chief engineer on the Brooklyn Bridge, which, when opened to the public on 24 May 1883, was the longest suspension bridge in the world. It... Read more »
Just as I am about to interview this year’s Women’s prize winner, debut American novelist Virginia Evans, at the party on a drizzly evening in a leafy London square, we are interrupted... Read more »
Not With a Bang by Temi Oh (Solstice, £20)The four daughters of a doomsday prepper were trained what to do in an emergency: grab their bags and head for the well-stocked bunker... Read more »
Debut novelist Virginia Evans has won this year’s Women’s prize for fiction, while the BBC’s chief international correspondent Lyse Doucet took home the nonfiction award, also for her debut. Evans’s The Correspondent... Read more »
The central characters of Frida Slattery As Herself, Ana Kinsella’s debut novel, are the eponymous Frida, 23 when the novel opens, and John Reddan, five years older. Both live in Dublin. Frida... Read more »