Month-to-month loyalties
I cannot recall a specific moment in which I told myself that I would become a writer. But I know I was twenty, taking a bath in a crappy apartment in Columbus, Ohio, the first time I read something that made me feel the author was writing for me alone. I was reading Joan Didion’s...
Weapons of mass diplomacy
Written by a former speechwriter and adviser to French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, and set during the run-up to something very like the Iraq conflict, Weapons of Mass Diplomacy is a political satire that gets under the skin of modern politics and diplomatic relations. Published in France as Quai d’Orsay, it won the Grand...
On the trail of Gideon Lewis-Kraus
In his discursive and entertaining debut A Sense of Direction Gideon Lewis-Kraus challenges the boundaries of memoir and travelogue as he departs a life of lazy curiosity and stale hedonism in Berlin to embark on three distinct pilgrimages to examine how we may be defined by ritual, desire and purpose. Along the well-trodden trail of...
Hanging by the bay
I live in Santa Cruz, California, on the very edge of the continent and one of the most beautiful places on planet earth. Most mornings I take a walk along West Cliff Drive, where I am joined by joggers, strollers, dogs, bicyclists and tourists. The ocean is below us; the path winds along the cliffs...
Finding magic in the boneyard
I have difficulty reading for pleasure now that I’m writing full-time. This was probably brought on by the endless rewrites I did getting my first novel Bone Dust White ready for publication. I’m hoping it’s temporary, but for the time being my editor has taken up residence in my head and he will not be...
The story of Gilgamesh
The Story of Gilgamesh is one of ten titles in the Save the Story series which is being rolled out by Pushkin Children’s Books in 2013 and 2014, building a library of favourite stories from around the world retold for today’s children by some of the best contemporary writers. The stories they retell span cultures...
Rumi at the top
Susan Minot’s latest novel, Thirty Girls, is a gripping story about an American writer who travels to Uganda to report on the abduction and detention of a group of schoolgirls by the rebel army of a local warlord, whose life becomes inescapably entwined with that of one of the girls. She disappears when she writes,...
Translating between the lines
“Since we’re already here, I want to have a real conversation.” – Yujeong When I was first starting out as a translator and wondering how on earth anyone could have enough endurance to translate an entire novel, a much more experienced translator explained to me that it wasn’t as hard as it seemed. She told...
Immaculate confections
Wes Anderson discusses how his latest film The Grand Budapest Hotel was sparked by the life and writings of Stefan Zweig. The film is imbued with Anderson’s trademark mix of arch humour, slapstick, stop-motion animation and intricate staging that give a constant and playful nod to the artifices of storytelling and filmmaking. Yet through all...
This dog’s life
It happened like this: after a walk in the park, Karl and I saw a young woman sitting in a car talking to a dog. Even from a distance, through the hard glass of the windshield, we could tell this was an exceptional animal. Karl, never shy, tapped on the window to ask her what...
J. Courtney Sullivan forever
J. Courtney Sullivan’s epic third novel The Engagements serves up a sparkling slice of American social history alongside tales of love, marriage, break-up and everything in-between as it charts the fortunes of a diamond ring through the lives of couples spanning five generations from 1901 to 2012. Conjuring great passion and deep betrayal, this inventive...
The old world
No one wants to listen to a man lament his solitary nights – myself included. Which is why, on an early fall morning four months after Gail left, when a woman breezed into my shop with a pinstriped skirt in her arms and said, “On what day this can be ready?” I didn’t write a...
