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Murderous impulses: The Possession, by Annie Ernaux, reviewed
Gripped by jealousy and ‘a primordial savagery’, Ernaux fantasises about committing ‘crimes of passion’ when her husband leaves her for another woman
The benign republic of Julian Barnes
The novelist presents his utopia – of unilateral disarmament and the public ownership of transport – in the tone of a thoughtful vicar giving an anodyne sermon somewhere in the Home Counties
Why did Jon Fosse win the Nobel Prize for literature? It’s baffling.
If Jon Fosse’s novels are experimental, they are experiments in exhausting banality, says Philip Hensher
Keir Starmer’s essay is a cliché-ridden disaster
Many years ago, a tabloid newspaper played an unkind prank on the author of a very long and much talked-about…
Victorian novels to enjoy in lockdown
It’s the perfect opportunity to crack open those classics of 19th-century fiction you’ve always been meaning to read, and I…
Short stories to enjoy in lockdown
In these circumstances there’s a temptation to reach for the longest novel imaginable. If you’re not going to read Proust…
