Hemingway in Havana
Ian Fleming, then Foreign Editor of The Sunday Times, sent Norman Lewis to Cuba in December 1957. Fleming had recently met Lewis, and became a fan of his writing. Having been sent a proof-copy of The Volcanoes Above Us, he wrote to Lewis’s editor, ‘Volcanoes is a wonderful book… showing a fascinating mind and really...
Flowers in a jam jar
In April 1961 Ernest Hemingway would distil, in almost oracular terms, the nature of the writing act as a way of capturing the world, as a way of relating to life, but also as a way of confronting the inexorable absence at the heart of much of existence: “In writing, there are many secrets. Nothing...
Summer at Sheep’s Head
Nick Laird’s latest novel Modern Gods is a provocative tale of two Northern Irish sisters who trying to negotiate unexpected challenges of faith, family, guilt and repentance – both at home and in the depths of a Papua New Guinea rainforest. He answers our quickfire Q&A on a recent London visit. Where are you now?...
