Talk of a possible third book to follow this week’s release of Go Set a Watchman suggests the ‘delicious mystery’ of Harper Lee will continue for years to come. So what basis is there for the rumours?
Go Set a Watchman, by Harper Lee, is one of the most anticipated follow-ups in history, to be published next week after a 55-year hiatus. So what does the opening chapter prime us to expect?
The discrepancy between cover designs for Lolita – published 60 years ago – and the themes of the novel are stark. But that hasn’t stopped hundreds of designers trying to get it right.
Whatever name you give it, writing of this sort is increasingly becoming the prime location for imaginative representations of our culture’s deepest hopes and fears.
Many child narrators in adult fiction are precocious. This enables them to describe events and people in ways that would not be possible for ordinary children of their age.
The late Black Consciousness leader Steve Biko and political philosophers Frantz Fanon and Achille Mbembe top the list of writers who get routinely abducted by discerning pirates of the book world.
If a society should be judged by the way it treats its children, and those who are struggling on the margins, then Laguna’s work once again proves that the novel is a crucial means for drawing attention to the burning problems of our times.
The very idea of the happy ending as appropriate literary fare for children is an illusion. Most fairy tales are full of darkness and violence, and as often as not do not end happily.
The desire to connect with literary places supports a substantial tourist trade. And the reasons why people embark on literary pilgrimages are as diverse as the kinds of fiction that inspire them.
We know that male writers win more prestigious literary awards than female writers, but sadly, when women do win, it’s typically because they write about male characters, or “masculine’ topics.
Wednesday Martin’s book Primates of Park Avenue has stirred debate over the so-called “wife bonus”, but feminism needs to be about more than the ability to buy things.
Victor Hugo famously claimed the invention of the printing press destroyed the edifice of the gothic cathedral. Others fear the internet age will eventually destroy the novel. But guess what? It won’t.
The popular neurologist revealed earlier this year that he only has months to live – a statement which casts his recently-released memoir, On the Move: A Life, in a new light.
Books have active political lives. They inspire social movements and bind people together. Books can stand as short-hand symbols for larger galaxies of ideas.
“We need something by which to judge, by which to navigate our journey through the stars, which is to say our journey through time.” Ben Okri discusses his new novel The Age of Magic and our busy lives.
“I have a bit of resistance to the way the world is and making up my own world is a response to that,” says Pakistani novelist Mohsin Hamid, a guest at this year’s Sydney Writers’ Festival.