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Crime's grand tour: European detective fiction

A melancholy Swede … Henning Mankell’s Wallander (Krister Henriksson). Photograph: Yellow Bird/BBC One of the functions of fiction is to serve as a kind of tourism, either showing us places,…
PUBLISHED: Oct. 26, 2012
LENGTH: 15 minutes (3976 words)

The trouble with athiests: a defence of faith

'There’s something truly devoted about the way that Dawkinsites manage to extract a stimulating hobby from the thought of other people’s belief.' Photograph: Frank Baron My daughter has just turned…
PUBLISHED: Aug. 31, 2012
LENGTH: 13 minutes (3387 words)

James Kelman: 'Why is my work so upsetting for people?'

'I never sit down with an idea' … James Kelman in Glasgow Photograph: Martin Hunter for the Guardian As with all James Kelman's novels, it's hard to say exactly what his latest is about. In the…
PUBLISHED: July 29, 2012
LENGTH: 9 minutes (2418 words)

Will Self: modernism and me

'Aged 20 I was already finding conventional English prose fiction quite as constricting as I did conventional English society' … Will Self in his writing room in London. Photograph: Eamonn…
AUTHOR:Will Self
PUBLISHED: Aug. 3, 2012
LENGTH: 14 minutes (3553 words)

The ruins of empire: Asia's emergence from western imperialism

Raffles Place, Singapore … 'European withdrawal after the second world war was never in doubt.' Photograph: Roslan Rahman/AFP/Getty Images The British empire, George Orwell wrote, was "despotism with…
PUBLISHED: July 27, 2012
LENGTH: 15 minutes (3754 words)

The ruins of empire: Asia's emergence from western imperialism

Raffles Place, Singapore … 'European withdrawal after the second world war was never in doubt.' Photograph: Roslan Rahman/AFP/Getty Images The British empire, George Orwell wrote, was "despotism with…
PUBLISHED: July 27, 2012
LENGTH: 15 minutes (3754 words)

PD James: inside the head of a criminal mastermind

PD James, at home in Holland Park, London: her ability to keep readers guessing hasn’t failed her in half a century. Photograph: Sophia Evans for the Observer At 10 o'clock PD Jame
PUBLISHED: July 15, 2012
LENGTH: 10 minutes (2739 words)

Hannah Rothschild on Nica: 'I saw a woman who knew where she belonged'

Thelonious Monk and Nica de Koenigswarter at the Five Spot jazz club, New York, 1964: 'She’s in love with him: the way she gazes at him… but I don’t believe that sex was at the heart of it.'…
PUBLISHED: April 22, 2012
LENGTH: 12 minutes (3158 words)

Hannah Rothschild on Nica: 'I saw a woman who knew where she belonged'

Thelonious Monk and Nica de Koenigswarter at the Five Spot jazz club, New York, 1964: 'She’s in love with him: the way she gazes at him… but I don’t believe that sex was at the heart of it.'…
PUBLISHED: April 22, 2012
LENGTH: 12 minutes (3158 words)
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