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.
Modernism – and western culture generally since the late 18th century – taught us that books were written in solitary creative frenzies. But ghostwriters are increasingly challenging that assumption.
You’d be forgiven for thinking Double Falsehood was recently “found” and confirmed as being by Shakespeare. But that’s not what the researchers behind the computational tests actually said. So what’s up?
To burnish the virtues of “civilised” Europe, Adam Smith relies on a barrage of racial insults. Where did his information about the so-called “savage peoples” come from in the first place?
Though Kazuo Ishiguro makes us wonder whether remembering is really better than forgetting, he also makes it clear that the answer is irrelevant. Remembering is our fate.
Emily Bitto has won the 2015 Stella Prize for her debut novel, The Strays. The prize is now in its third year and was established to redress the way in which women writers were typically overlooked for major literary prizes
The State Library of Victoria has received the greatest single bequest of rare books in its history, coupled with an endowment for the collection’s preservation. No wonder book scholars are smiling.
Negative reaction by other authors to Salman Rushdie’s book ratings demonstrates how sensitive writers can be. But why shouldn’t an author give however many stars they like to a book?