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 […]

Why the prissy reaction to Ferrante being unmasked? | Catherine Bennett

The latest literary outcry might suggest that readers are rarely interested in the novelist. History disagrees. The first time that someone urged me to read Elena Ferrante, he mentioned her anonymity, along with her evocation of Naples, and her peerless representation of womens friendships, as among her most impressive qualities. This was in 2013, shortly […]

US afflicted with ‘third world’ police says author Marlon James

Speaking in Paris, the Jamaica-born Man Booker prize-winner compared US police to Argentina state-sanctioned death squads The United States is afflicted with third World police which has led to almost state-sanctioned killings of people from minority groups, one of the countrys leading black writers said on Sunday. Marlon James, who won the Man Booker prize […]