“It’s a kind of reincarnation without death: all these different lives we get to live in this one body, as ourselves.”
“When I try to imagine the addresses of the houses and apartments I lived in before my grandparents kidnapped me, I can’t remember anything.”
“How rich and diverse, how complex and non-linear the history of all women is.”
“All that matters is that you are making something you love, to the best of your ability, here and now.”
One man’s account of rendition, torture and detention without charge at the hands of the US
‘My life as a writer was a quiet thing…’ – Yann Martel on winning the Man Booker Prize
Yann Martel
Guardian
“You might not be familiar with the American artist and activist David Wojnarowicz’s name, but if you’re of a certain age, you have probably seen at least one image by him. His photograph of buffalo tumbling off a cliff was used as the cover of U2’s One, taking his art to a global audience a few months before his death in 1992 of Aids-related complications.”
Olivia Laing
Guardian
What advice would you offer to aspiring writers? – Mumsnet. ‘Read obsessively. There is no better training for writing than reading.’ – Tahmima
Read Tahmima's interview with Mumsnet
Mumsnet
Strange Loyalties (Black Thorn)
“I don’t ever remember not wanting to be a poet” – Lemn Sissay delivers an epiphany on poetry and how poetry chooses you.
BBC Radio 6 Music
“In Dirt Road we see [Kelman] continuing to show how human experience can be energised and renewed by its modest scale, not flattened by it into a stereotype. It is another masterpiece from one of our best writers.”
Kirsty Gunn
Guardian
The High Mountains of Portugal
“The moral and spiritual implications of his tale have, in the end, a quality of haunting tenderness”
Ursula K Le Guin
Guardian
“I now believe that there are books with magic and without. And I much prefer them with, thank you very much.” Scarlett Thomas on Dragon’s Green
Guardian