Written for The Guardian: Paul Auster is a writer with many skills: a disarming directness of style, a subtle ability to render subtle psychology, a connoisseur’s feel for the novel form – its limits and its play – and much besides. Invisible is the story of Adam Walker who, while a student at Columbia University in 1967,…
Most novelists and poets are broke. But why aren’t we getting a bailout? We’ve been no worse at our jobs than the bankers. Written for Prospect Magazine: “Dude, where’s my cheque? Either this is not a recovery, or you forgot to mail out our cheques while the recession was on.” “That’s what you’d…
For Prospect Magazine On 6th December, 30 years ago, on a dark and miserable night in south London, a few streets from where I am writing this, a young Peter Mandelson was elected as a Labour borough councillor to the world’s most insane local council—Lambeth. Representing Stockwell, the 26-year-old Mandelson found himself sitting on…