Last year I spent a month at Hawthornden International Writers’ Retreat near Edinburgh. Fellows (as the participants are called) come…
June 2018
It’s not often that you pick up a book that grabs you from the very first page, holds you in…
Often, without much thought (and quite insensitively), we consider other cultures to be intrinsically different from our own; we imagine…
A drawing pinned to the wall of 11-year-old Leila’s attic bedroom shows a tiny dark spot in the midst of…
Pascal Quignard is one of my favourite authors. But whenever I can get hold of a new book by him,…
Poet Ana Blandiana is of that rare breed that has been laurelled with both literary and humanitarian singularity. Her career…