book reviews and features
Laura Beatty: Looking for Theophrastus review - adventures in psychobiography
Friday, 06 May 2022
Laura Beatty is a kind of Shirley Valentine figure in contemporary English literature. A decade and a half ago she published an astonishing debut novel entitled Pollard about female... Read more... |
Emily St John Mandel: Sea of Tranquility review - time travel, pandemics and the simulation hypothesis
Tuesday, 26 April 2022
Emily St John Mandel’s wonderful novel of 2020, The Glass Hotel, featured people and places from her... Read more... |
Scholastique Mukasonga: The Barefoot Woman review - remembering Rwanda before 1994
Thursday, 14 April 2022
To read Scholastique Mukasonga’s memoir, The Barefoot Woman, beautifully translated from the French by... Read more... |
Extract: Catching Fire by Daniel Hahn
Tuesday, 12 April 2022
Daniel Hahn began his translation of Jamás el fuego nunca, a novel by experimental Chilean artist Diamela Eltit, in January 2021. Considering the careful, difficult but not impossible “... Read more... |
Alejandro Zambra: Chilean Poet review - from here to paternity
Tuesday, 05 April 2022
Time-honoured advice warns actors never to work with children or animals. Perhaps the literary equivalent should tell novelists not to invent other writers in their books. Especially poets. Unless... Read more... |
Extract: Where My Feet Fall - Going For A Walk in Twenty Stories
Tuesday, 29 March 2022
I began work on Where My Feet Fall a few months into the pandemic of 2020. After lockdown was announced we all became better walkers, and the collection took on greater resonance. ... Read more... |
Marianne Eloise: Obsessive, Intrusive, Magical Thinking review - bargaining with the devil
Wednesday, 23 March 2022
No mental health condition has become quite as kitsch as obsessive-compulsive disorder. Its tacky shorthands – the hand washing,... Read more... |
María Gainza: Portrait of an Unknown Lady review – queens of the unreal
Tuesday, 01 March 2022
It’s no surprise that the theme of fakes and forgery appeals so much to writers, who traffic in plausible illusions and often believe (in María Gainza’s words) that truth is “just another well-... Read more... |
Salley Vickers: The Gardener review - nature has other ideas
Tuesday, 01 March 2022
A garden is a space defined by its limits. Whatever its contents in terms of style and species, and however manicured or apparently wild its appearance, what distinguishes a garden from its... Read more... |
Extract: My Pen is the Wing of a Bird, New Fiction by Afghan Women
Monday, 21 February 2022
"My pen is the wing of a bird; it will tell you those thoughts we are not allowed to think, those dreams we are not allowed to dream." Batool Haidari’s words give this bold collection of stories... Read more... |
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It all started on 09/09/09. That memorable date, September 9 2009, marked the debut of theartsdesk.com.
It followed some...
The Devil Wears Prada, Dominion Theatre review - efficient b...
It's second time only quasi-lucky for The Devil Wears Prada, the stage musical adaptation of the much-loved Meryl Streep film from 2006...
The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim review - a mi...
Lauded by Auden, detested by Edmund Wilson, the Tolkien sagas have divided many from childhood onwards: for kids, they’re not quite pulpy enough...
Jesus & Mary Chain, O2 Institute, Birmingham - Reid Brot...
The Jesus and Mary Chain may have been around for some 40 years (albeit on and off), but the Reid brothers clearly have no intention of setting up...
Album: Ajukaja & Mart Avi - Death of Music
Death of Music was created in Estonia. Despite the English lyrics, directness is absent. Take the title track. “Drop the music” exhorts...
The Producers, Menier Chocolate Factory review - liberating...
There is something deliciously perfect about the timing of The Producers’ arrival at the Menier Chocolate Factory. In these...
La rondine, LSO, Pappano, Barbican review - sumptuous orches...
There are no battlement leaps or murderous vows, no pistols or daggers, not so much as a slight cough disturbs the serene plot of La rondine...
A Midsummer Night's Dream, RSC, Barbican review - visua...
Hermia is a headbutting punk with a tartan fetish, Oberon looks like Adam Ant and Lysander appears to have stumbled out of a Madness video. Yet...
L’étoile, RNCM, Manchester review - lavish and cheerful absu...
Emmanuel Chabrier’s L’étoile is not exactly a French farce, but it comes from a post-Offenbach era (1877 saw its premiere) when cheerful...
