As explained by Ed Vulliamy in the foreword, Michael Jacobs was working on this book when he died prematurely. Jacobs had hoped that the very process of researching and writing the book would enable him to solve the mysteries of the painting he regarded as the world’s greatest: Diego Velázquez’ Las Meninas. More broadly, in Read More
Comma Press is one of the better known small publishing houses that has built its reputation as much upon a backlist of work in translation as in English. Comma’s many anthologies, short story collections and novels by writers from Britain, from across the Channel and further afield are waking us up to the richness and Read More
s s u n n s s e t t the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the CrookCrookCrookCrookCrookCrookCrookCrookCrookCrookCrookCrookCrookCrookCrook road road road road road road road road road road road road road road road Most poets prefer to work with a laptop or perhaps a pen and paper. Read More
Jacob Polley is the author of four poetry collections. Previously shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize, with The Brink(2003); Jackself is both a move away from the style of his previous collections, and also follows quite naturally in the same vein. Polley’s work tends to explore eerie, curious stories and tales. Rather like Ted Hughes, Read More
Where love begins is Judith Hermann’s second work of fiction. It follows her 2009 success Alice; a collection of five interconnected short stories. Herman’s new novel follows a similar framework to her previous fiction, allowing her readers snapshots into her protagonist’s domestic lifestyle. Stella’s life in a German suburb is monotonous. Her days are preoccupied Read More
Rachael Boast won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection in 2011 with Sidereal. That same collection also won the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry Prize. Her latest collection, Void Studies, “realizes a project that the French Symbolist poet Arthur Rimbaud had proposed, but never got round to writing.” The collection’s title is almost a Read More
Inspired by the ideals of pan-Caribbean unity espoused by her muse, yet obscured by his shadow, Esther Phillips steps out from behind this unrecognition to offer a candid reflection of life and love. Dedicated to the highly publicised and acclaimed Barbadian writer George Lamming, her “commensurate artist” and lover, Leaving Atlantis recounts Phillips’ experiences through Read More
Originally from Cullen, Co. Cork, Bernard O’Donoghue has been an English don at Oxford University since 1965. This is his sixth collection. O’Donoghue has been a recipient of the Whitbread (now Costa) Prize for Poetry and Faber published his Selected Poems in 2008.Being shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize (for the best collection of Read More
“Shine the torch, count the eyes and divide by two”. My own mother’s description of checking the sheep always seemed odd to me but Gillian Clarke says much the same thing in her poem “Ark”: We wake nightly in the early hours, dress for the rain To count their faces in the flashlight, their glittering Read More
The taut neologism of the title, under Paul Klee’s glorious painting “The Fruit, 1932”, in tandem with the titular poem and the opening of “Ultragreen”, convinced me I was about to read a collection devoted to the study of synathesia. I was very wrong, despite that first section’s immersion in colour which fades slowly into Read More