The vivid last poems of a poet who knew he was dying
Peter Scupham (1933–2022) died shortly after this collection of poems was finalized and, as his last blog post for his ...
Exploring trauma and identity in the Irish borderlands
“For better or worse, I am a product of borders”, the Newry poet James Conor Patterson declares in his introduction ...
In defence of Martin Amis’s The Rachel Papers, fifty years after its publication
I don’t think I’m supposed to like this novel. I’ve had that feeling ever since I suggested it to an ...
The Peruvian novelist’s journey towards liberalism
In 1990 Mario Vargas Llosa stood as a candidate to become president of Peru. He won the first round as ...
‘Hold’ by Isobel Williams | Original poem | The TLS
I hold the orb in my cupped hand The sceptre tilts at my command You the subjugated land I a ...
‘Women of the Tribe’ by Bibhu Padhi | Original poem | The TLS
They can walk up to what we can’t dream of, with their heads loaded with firewood and a faith in ...
A cold case is opened, awakening old ghosts
In a ramshackle flat on the Irish coast, Tom Kettle – a newly retired detective – spends his days in ...
Between Mexican abductions and London dinner parties
History Keeps Me Awake at Night tells the story of Margit, a woman who has it all and wants none ...
The detective genre has emerged as an ideal vehicle for John Banville’s writing
John Banville has arrived at a crossroads in his literary career. In one direction lies the sequence of unapologetically “highbrow” ...
A strange creative response to the pandemic
In 1885 Richard Jefferies, noted until then as a loving yet never sentimental observer of wild nature and country life, ...
A veteran fiction writer charts the ‘charged landscape’ of her nineties
“Ruth said, ‘Remember how we said we are the people in the world to whom we tell things. And that’s ...
‘Blazon’ by Craig Raine | Original poem | The TLS
A single pigeon backing up like the Winged Victory of Samothrace. The dog a hypnotist, watching me eat, her powers ...
The Bright Young Thing who became George Orwell’s friend, collaborator and observer
Of all the women writers with whom George Orwell worked, collaborated and socialized in the 1940s – their number included ...
Attention and its lapses, viewed through work of German psychology and literature
On August 2, 1914, Franz Kafka noted in his diary: “Germany has declared war on Russia. Went swimming in the ...
Poverty, discrimination and togetherness in 1940s Trinidad
Central Trinidad, 1940s. Multiple worlds. The Have-Everythings: the Americans with their clean clothes and waterproof watches, recently arrived to police ...
YSJ Lit Interview: Departmental Prizewinner Adam Kirkbride – Words Matter.
Dr Saffron Vickers Walkling interviews Adam Kirkbride (he/they). Adam was the 2021 York St John Literature English Literature Undergraduate Dissertation ...
