grief

The end of days: It Lasts Forever And Then It’s Over, by Anne de Marcken, reviewed

16 March 2024 9:00 am

‘Don’t try to picture the apocalypse’, advises the novel’s unnamed zombie narrator. ‘Everything looks exactly the way you remembered it.’

Letter From Santiago

14 October 2023 9:00 am

Why I had to let go of my late sister’s house

5 August 2023 9:00 am

Why I had to let go of my late sister’s house

That sinking feeling: The Swimmers, by Julie Otsuka, reviewed

26 February 2022 9:00 am

Julie Otsuka has good rhythm, sentences that move to a satisfying beat. Even as her tone shifts — from tender…

Bird-brained: Brood, by Jackie Polzin, reviewed

29 May 2021 9:00 am

This is not a novel about four chickens of various character — Gloria, Miss Hennepin County, Gam Gam and Darkness…

Mourning sickness: our conspiracy of silence over grief

17 April 2021 9:00 am

Why are we so scared of other people’s grief?

The importance of a good funeral

20 February 2021 9:00 am

A proper funeral is a great comfort

The art of mourning well

13 February 2021 9:00 am

Malindi, Kenya I’ve learned that mourning must be tackled ever so gently. As a younger man, when friends were killed…

‘People confuse sadness with darkness’: the complicated world of Mary Gaitskill

19 December 2020 9:00 am

An interview with the American novelist Mary Gaitskill

Today’s undergraduates are customers – and the customer is always right

22 August 2020 9:00 am

If you’re looking for a sign of the academic times, you could do worse than consider the image, published in…

She was just a damn cat – and I loved her

18 July 2020 9:00 am

I’ve never dug a grave before. But that was how I spent my Sunday afternoon. Three feet is awfully deep…

How an orphaned baby kudu gave solace to my grieving friend

29 June 2019 9:00 am

Laikipia, Kenya   On 5 April this year, my neighbour Torrie’s sister Vicki died during an operation in a Nairobi…

Sweet sorrow: the only grief we mention is that with comfort buried inside it

9 June 2018 9:00 am

It was the phrase ‘sad sweet feeling in your heart’ that arrested my attention. But who would have thought it…

From a Low and Quiet Sea: making art from a perilous journey

24 March 2018 9:00 am

Donal Ryan is one of the most notable Irish writers to emerge this decade. So far he has produced five…

All at sea — trying hard to stay afloat

16 April 2016 9:00 am

‘This happens to other people.’ The Guardian journalist Decca Aitkenhead says she had heard the phrase countless times, interviewing the…

Julie Myerson captures the sorrow that surpasses all understanding

5 March 2016 9:00 am

As its title suggests, Julie Myerson’s tenth novel is about stoppage: the kind that happens when one suffers a loss…

Why do we assume our western good life will last for ever?

21 November 2015 9:00 am

The slaughter in Paris is a catastrophe for the victims and their families, but the usual hysterical response across the…

The perfect big bang that opens this book was too good to be true

19 September 2015 8:00 am

Houses, as any plumber will testify, do sometimes blow up in gas explosions, destroying their contents and inhabitants, but would…