William Boyd on his friend Martin Amis: ‘He was ferociously intelligent – and very funny’

He saw the world’s cruel absurdities through a comic lens, writes Boyd, who recalls his very first meeting with Amis – and explains why his unmistakable voice will never be forgotten• John Self on Amis: ‘He stamped his style over a generation’• Geoff Dyer on Amis: ‘Mick Jagger in literary form’The awful news of Martin Amis’s death prompts a rush of memories. I first met him in 1969, in Paris, when we both found ourselves staying in the same apartment on the Île Saint-Louis for a few days. I was 17, Martin was 20. I only realised who this Martin guy was four years later when his first novel, The Rachel Papers, appeared. In a strange but real sense, he was the first writer I had ever met. And thus began an acquaintance as an avid reader and later as a friend.The remarkable thing about that first novel was the utter confidence and distinctiveness of the narrative voice. Martin found his style at the very beginning of his career as a writer and it never changed. That voice he had defined and charged everything else he wrote – fiction, essays, journalism, memoirs. Very few writers can be instantly identified by a sentence or two of their prose – Laurence Sterne, Charles Dickens, James Joyce, DH Lawrence, Vladimir Nabokov – and Martin precociously joined that elite group and stayed there. Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'

[ The Guardian | 2023-05-22 07:00:49 UTC ]

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Elena Ferrante Returns With ‘The Lying Life of Adults’

In her first novel in five years, the author of “My Brilliant Friend” revisits old themes. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2020-09-01 09:00:11 UTC ]
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The Festival Five with Author and Translator David Bellos, by The Editors of WLT

Interviews Get to know the participants of the upcoming 2020 Neustadt Festival in this series of short interviews. First up: David Bellos! David Bellos is a professor of French and comparative literature as well as director of the Program in Translation... Continue reading at World Literature Today

[ World Literature Today | 2020-08-25 20:30:39 UTC ]
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Picador picks up new novel from Ridgway

Picador has picked up the first novel in eight years from award-winning Irish author Keith Ridgway. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-08-24 11:52:26 UTC ]
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Leaving It All Behind: A Conversation with Makenna Goodman

Makenna Goodman on leaving New York publishing behind for the farms of Vermont, and why publishing her first novel was traumatic. Continue reading at The Paris Review

[ The Paris Review | 2020-08-20 17:18:24 UTC ]
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Edinburgh International Book Festival online

The 2020 Edinburgh International Book Festival will be presented online from Saturday 15 to Monday 31 August. The programme, made up of over 140 events for adults, families and children, will offer both live and pre-recorded conversations featuring leading writers, poets and participants from... Continue reading at British Council global

[ British Council global | 2020-08-07 14:45:31 UTC ]
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Review: The demons that dogged Charles Dickens

Veteran biographer A.N. Wilson takes on one of the most popular, prolific and puzzling writers in English literature in "The Mystery of Charles Dickens." Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2020-08-06 14:00:54 UTC ]
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The Long-Awaited Return of Gayl Jones

Gayl Jones published her first novel in 1975. It was hailed by James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, and John Updike. Then Gayl disappeared from the literary scene. Now she's releasing her first novel in 20 years. The post The Long-Awaited Return of Gayl Jones appeared first on The Millions. Continue reading at The Millions

[ The Millions | 2020-08-05 20:30:18 UTC ]
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MJ reveals October novel from Dawn French

Michael Joseph is publishing the first novel from Dawn French in five years, called Because of You, this October. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-07-29 17:04:51 UTC ]
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Is This the End of Writing in Cafés?

Full disclosure: I may not be the right person to answer the question posed in this headline. After all, I wrote my first novel almost entirely from bed. In fact, I am writing this essay from bed now. Like Edith Wharton, Colette, and Proust, I am more creative when reclined, and when... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-07-28 10:44:03 UTC ]
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In Gail Tsukiyama’s ‘The Color of Air,’ characters reel in the wake of the Mauna Loa volcanic eruption

Tsukiyama’s first novel in nearly a decade takes readers to the 1930s Hawai’i of her Japanese father, where sugar was king and labor was hard. Continue reading at The Washington Post

[ The Washington Post | 2020-07-20 12:07:23 UTC ]
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Headline wins Sanghani’s 'irresistible' adult fiction debut

Headline Review has won Radhika Sanghani's first novel for adults, 30 Things I Love About Myself, in a "heated" auction. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-07-17 00:46:50 UTC ]
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Literature on Lockdown 9: #CultureConnectsUs

As the lockdown restrictions to contain the spread of Covid-19 begin to be relaxed across the UK, we’re bringing you the final instalment of our Literature on Lockdown series.Following the worldwide demonstrations, protests and public events in support of the Black Lives Matter movement,... Continue reading at British Council global

[ British Council global | 2020-06-16 16:00:51 UTC ]
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New Ishiguro novel coming in March 2021

Klara and the Sun, the first novel by Kazuo Ishiguro since he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2017, will be published by Faber & Faber on 2nd March 2021. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-06-16 08:35:46 UTC ]
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South Sudan title among PEN Translates award-winners

Nineteen books from 15 countries and 13 languages have won English PEN’s flagship translation awards, including the first novel from South Sudan ever to be published in the UK. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2020-06-10 01:27:30 UTC ]
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Charles Dickens: how two novelists gave Great Expectations a second life in the Pacific

Two sequels which show how the Victorian novelist's stories can be adapted to reflect post-colonial narratives. Continue reading at The Conversation

[ The Conversation | 2020-06-08 16:19:12 UTC ]
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Grace Edwards, Harlem Mystery Writer, Dies at 87

A former director of the Harlem Writers Guild, she published her first novel when she was 55, and her first mystery, featuring a stylish female ex-cop turned sleuth, when she was 64. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2020-06-05 21:17:02 UTC ]
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This year’s Desmond Elliott shortlist features all black writers.

The Desmond Elliott Prize is awarded annually to a writer whose first novel is written in English and published in the UK. Since 2007, it has supported and heralded new writers; the honor comes with a £10,000 prize. It’s heartening to see, especially right now, that this year the Desmond Elliott... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2020-06-02 17:58:53 UTC ]
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10 Eighteenth-Century Novels Everyone Should Read

Although it was the nineteenth century when the novel arguably came into its own, with novelists like Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, George Eliot, and the Brontë sisters writing novels that are still widely read and studied today, the eighteenth century was the age in which the novel emerged as a... Continue reading at Interesting Literature

[ Interesting Literature | 2020-05-23 14:00:38 UTC ]
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The Path Not Taken

Stephanie Danler’s memoir Stray invites us to look closely at our own life: our family dynamics, our loss, our trauma, and the moments of happiness that still exist within that fragile frame. With deep introspection and stunning prose, Danler tells us about the years she spent after writing her... Continue reading at Electric Literature

[ Electric Literature | 2020-05-19 11:00:55 UTC ]
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