Edinburgh-based writer Cherise Saywell has won this year’s BBC national short story award for a “tender” and “taut” story about a young boy caught in the midst of domestic violence. Saywell was... Read more »
Even before submitting the script for the pilot, Dunham was asked to write four episodes along with it. In September, the studio decided to make the pilot, and the shoot was scheduled... Read more »
The protagonist of Meg Mason’s new book, the follow-up to the 2020 tragicomedy Sorrow and Bliss, is an invisible woman. She might well be standing there but you won’t notice her. She’s... Read more »
Something is happening to literary time. In the last fortnight I’ve read new or forthcoming novels about a mirror universe where history runs backwards (The Understory, Chloe Benjamin), an agency that offers... Read more »
Which, in your opinion, is the worst current cultural trend: social media influencers; unregulated wellness practitioners; macho manosphere posturers; psychedelic bores; cultural appropriators? The good news is that, with Octavio Rettig, the central... Read more »
Kevin Powers’s fourth novel marks a return to the themes and subject matter of his acclaimed debut The Yellow Birds, winner of the 2012 Guardian first book award. Through the lives of... Read more »
Annie and Vernice (or Niecy, as Annie calls her) are “cradle friends”, brought up in their home town of Honeysuckle, Louisiana, in 1950s America. The protagonists are defined by their motherlessness and their... Read more »
Sitting stoned on a hill above his village, a young man muses on his place in the world. Connor is proud to have fenced pastures while his mates have been away at... Read more »
Kae Tempest’s new novel is dedicated to “you”, the reader. It also comes with a plea: “Be gentle though.” But to whom or what should we be gentle? The book or the... Read more »