Reviewed by Declan Tan The Tequila Tales anthology (edited by Millie Johanna Heur and Roy Anthony Shabla) is an eclectic mixture of genre, style and content that unites a well-published group of writers on the single and divisive subject of, yes, tequila. All of the work has in some way been licked by the liquid […]
No Country for Young Men: An Interview with Urban Waite
Sidestepping the industry circus and downplaying his own achievements, Urban Waite isn’t your typical thriller writer, and his debut, The Terror of Living, isn’t your typical crime novel, as Dan Coxon finds out. Portrait by Sean Hunter Crossing into similar territory to Cormac McCarthy’s No Country For Old Men, The Terror of Living offers more […]
Gerald Locklin: An Interview
Gerald Locklin has, in his lengthy career, alternately been called a “people’s writer”, a “stand-up poet” (co-credited for coining the term) and, by his friend and contemporary, Charles Bukowski: “one of the great undiscovered talents of our time”. In a fascinating interview, Declan Tan hears about the influence of comic books, the giants of modernism […]
All Experience Devolves To Gratitude: Dan Fante
Carrying the torch passed on by Bukowski and Hubert Selby Jr, for many Dan Fante is America’s most vital writer. Interview by Declan Tan Dan Fante is one of the last surviving writers of his generation that could be called a “maverick”. Having spent years in his own personal wilderness, and never touching a typewriter, […]
Pop Goes Literature: The Decemberists
An authentic literary sensibility in pop music is rare but according to Ben Granger The Decemberists’ Colin Meloy has more than enough to share Pop music and literature are two separate miracles, the silent shout and the screamed secret, two wonders working to their own, different and divided rules. Each has seductive thrills of its […]
Guernica Magazine
“Guernica is an award-winning magazine of art and ideas. In its short time online, it has grown from one of the web’s best-kept secrets to one of its most acclaimed new magazines.” 01 Guernica: Launched in 2004 by New York-based writers Joel Whitney and Michael Archer, Guernica is an online journal of original creative and […]
M. Ageyev: Novel With Cocaine
A review by Dolly Delightly I have a penchant for esoteric Russian literature of the kind that’s mostly found in frowsy second-hand bookshops which, I am unashamed to say, I frequent with steadfast regularity. About a week ago, during one such visit, I picked up a 1985 Picador edition of a book called Novel With […]
Kafka’s Other Trial
Perhaps Josef K will get to testify in the ongoing wrangle over Kafka’s manuscripts in an Israeli court. The Czech author instructed his friend Max Brod to destroy his papers, instead two-thirds eventually made its way to the Bodleian Library via Kafka’s niece. The remainder ended up, after Brod’s death in 1968, with Esther Hoffe. […]
Branching Out: Peepal Tree Press
Peepal Tree Press is dedicated to expanding the Caribbean library and keeping it in print. Spike interviews its founder Jeremy Poynting Working out of the Burley area of Leeds, Peepal Tree Press has been a vital hub of independent publishing for just over 25 years. Founded by Jeremy Poynting to specialise in Caribbean writing, the […]
Australia: Prime Minister’s Literary Awards
The Australian government believes in supporting the arts as the annual Prime Minister’s Literary Awards demonstrates Where: Canberra, Australia What: Australia’s richest literary prize, the winning book in each category receives a tax-free award of AUD80,000. The categories are fiction, non-fiction, young adult and children’s fiction. Entries opened in January. The fiction panel is chaired […]
Enmeshed: Gay & Lesbian Latino-Americans in Los Angeles’ Eastside Scene
Los Angeles author and filmmaker Vanessa Libertad Garcia writes about the subcultural life that informs her writing The Voting Booth After Dark: Despicable, Embarrassing, Repulsive delves into the unique subculture of a specific, and frequently overlooked, group of Latino-Americans. The book’s protagonists are comprised of first generation Latino-Americans in their twenties who were born in […]
Dino Buzzati: An Introduction
Russell Mardell, author of Silent Bombs Falling On Green Grass, offers a personal introduction to the Italian writer I have to thank the writer Stephen Volk for introducing me to the wonderful short stories of Dino Buzzati. Such was the eagerness with which I took to them I found myself questioning why I had never […]
Twisted Spoon Press
An interview with Prague’s publisher of essential Eastern and Central European writing Prague’s Twisted Spoon Press produce some of the most beautiful books currently in print. Founded in 1992, by Howard Sidenberg, Kevin Blahut and Lukas Tomin, the publishing house has translated a string of classic and contemporary Central and Eastern European titles. Beginning with […]
Structure and subatomics: Don DeLillo, Underworld and the new historical novel
Jason Weaver revisits Don DeLillo’s premillennial opus of paranoia and baseball. The title of Don DeLillo’s 1997 novel Underworld alludes both to living under the canopy of the bomb and to a world beneath us, more specifically a hell. DeLillo has publicly stated that he wanted to write about the ‘secret’ history of the Cold […]
Jorge Luis Borges – The Book of Imaginary Beings
Ben Granger Borges is that rare writer, one who can truly change your outlook forever. To read Labyrinths or Ficciones is to experience the universe anew, to find a poetry in mathematics, a mysticism in reason. In tales like “Funes the Memorious”, “The Library of Babel” and “The Garden of Forking Paths”, Borges explores the […]
John Milton – Paradise Lost (illustrated by Gustave Doré)
…While Doré is known as being a gifted illustrator and artist, he can also be said to share in Milton’s perspicuity in realizing and communicating the breath and scope of the poet’s vision…
Jim Crace – The Pesthouse
“…While Jonathan Raban’s Surveillance looked at the near future, however, and predicted where we might end up if the current political climate continues, Jim Crace takes us several centuries further into this brave new world. Except it’s not so brave, and not even so new. In fact, it’s positively medieval….”
The Literary and Political Catholicism of Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh
“…Whenever there was a chance to have a shot at Catholicism in his writing, George Orwell could always be relied on to take aim and discharge both barrels. With the grim vision of Vatican support for Franco fresh in his mind, he was hardly without justification…”
Anne Michaels & Jeremy Padewsa – Fugitive Pieces
“…Transferring literary bestsellers to the big screen is never an easy business. Some adaptations get it right, and some get it wrong. Luckily Jeremy Padewsa’s Fugitive Pieces falls into the first camp…”
Jeff Noon: Cobralingus
Antony Johnston START > INLET Welcome to the review of Jeff Noon’s latest book, Cobralingus. DRUG: HYPERBOLIN > ENHANCE Jeff Noon’s latest masterpiece, the work of literate beauty that is Cobralingus, takes the reader on an unparalleled journey; one which will never be forgotten. This exemplary poetry, finely encapsulating the very essence of language, ensures […]
Saul Bellow: Ravelstein
Stephen Mitchelmore "I stood back from myself and looked into Amy’s face. No one else on all this earth had such features. This was the most amazing thing in the life of the world." These sentences come from the final page of Saul Bellow’s previous novel "The Actual", which, I seem to remember, he said […]
William S. Burroughs: Last Words
Nathan Cain The works of William Seward Burroughs have always, even among those who think themselves the hippest of the hip, been considered a bit much. Without a doubt, Ginsberg and Kerouac have been the most popular authors of the Beat movement, but the fact remains that Kerouac’s reputation is based on one work of […]
