Self-Portraits by David Pollard is a meticulously crafted collection of poems inspired by the work of eighty-nine artists. Each piece is assembled in such a way that the reader can visualise both the artists and the portraits which inspired the writing with clarity. From Caravaggio to Goya, Da Vinci to Warhol, the poet covers a Read More
Terence Winch’s latest collection, Lit from Below, is not for the faint-hearted. In ninety ten-line sonnets, he weaves together elements of what at first read like dreams and whimsy, before going off at a tangent into even more surreal imagery. Just as you think you might be able to make some sense of it, he’ll Read More
Tiffany Murray has been a Hay Festival International Writing Fellow, a Fulbright Scholar, and her academic posts have included Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of South Wales. Her previous novels Diamond Star Halo and Happy Accidents were shortlisted for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize and the London Book Award. Diamond Star Halo Read More
Two years ago, I read and loved Ismail Kadare’s 1970 work The Siege, a historical novel centred on 15th century Ottoman attacks on the Albanian city of Skhodër. Kadare is Albania’s foremost living author and, in rendering the episode, he absorbed me completely. Before reading The Siege, I knew nothing about the conflict to which Read More
The main danger with a collection that only contains 16 relatively short poems is that they all need to be excellent or at the very least good. Even four mediocre or bad poems might ruin the entire pamphlet since they constitute one fourth thereof. This is not to say that one cannot make any mistakes Read More
Ancillary Justice won almost every major Science Fiction award last year, and it is easy to see why. The novel is a space opera, set across various parts of a well-established galactic empire, and starring a main character who is all that remains of a star-ship’s artificial intelligence. The very idea of attempting to write Read More
It is difficult to know what to make of Rhys Hughes’ absurd collection of short stories or flash fictions as he calls them. Stories collected in The Lunar Tickle are very short, often lasting only a couple of pages. They vary significantly in quality, with some being quite memorable and others not at all. Although Read More
A Well Tempered Heart is a quirky, mesmerising novel on the theme of self-discovery. This spirited sequel to the award winning The Art of Hearing Heartbeats, might seem simply to be an easy contemporary read yet it possesses much deeper meaning. In Jan-Phillip Sendker’s new novel, Julia, despite being a successful Manhattan lawyer with prestige Read More
“I am sacred, comfort me.” Upon first glance, the opening statement of Frederick Lightfoot’s The Extinction of Snow might not amount to much; but you find yourself wondering what it means. As you progress to the subsequent paragraph, this ostensibly meaningless sentence suddenly seems harrowing as it is in actual fact the last sentence of Read More
We live in an age where women are no longer defined solely by their role as mothers, but whether by their presence or absence, children remain a conspicuous theme in many women’s life. Young girls know that the start of mensuration signals that they can have children. We relentlessly educate teenagers on avoiding teen pregnancy, Read More