How do you cut into what Elizabeth Chakrabarty terms ‘the Trojan horse’ of the essay? Whether it’s lyrical, discursive, inter-medial, associative, reflective, self-reflexive, or something yet undefined, from the outset of Imagined Spaces, the form is as far from the familiar academic expectation as may be dreamt. What then is this literal try, this attempt, Read More
In her latest novel, Kirsty Gunn takes a brave and original approach. Conscious of the language she uses, capable of creating memorable metaphors and telling parts of the story through characters’ distinctive dialogues, the author makes a bet. She believes that she can almost entirely remove plot from the book and make it worthwhile for Read More
I read these words over the shoulder of someone reading it the other day on the tube: “A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity.” Franz Kafka. It made me laugh, and the person who was reading it looked up, and we both smiled at each other. Perhaps that other person was a writer too? Read More
(This is a lightly edited transcript of the interview; to view the whole interview, please click image above) Cynthia Rogerson: I’m Cynthia Rogerson. I write novels and short stories. I’m from California and live in the Highlands. I’ve been there for a long, long time. Probably almost thirty-five years. Kirsty Gunn: And Cynthia’s here today to Read More
This is an edited filmed interview of a conversation that took place between Kirsty Gunn, Cameron Twiddy and James Kelman in October 2016. Cameron Twiddy’s personal account of that interview was posted on DURA, 28 July 2017.
(This is a lightly edited transcript of a filmed interview that can be watched by clicking on the image above.) Vivien Williams: Hello, I’m Vivien Williams and I am a research assistant at the University of Glasgow where I also completed recently a Ph.D on the cultural history of the bagpipe in Britain. The bagpipe Read More
What’s so great about simplicity? We’re always being told that the simple life is the right kind of life, uncluttered by unnecessary anxieties and the desires that fuel them. The simple message is the honest one, and the simple fact the thing that really happened. Now of course “simple” has got all complicated by terrifying 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
