self-criticism

Whatever happened to the stiff upper lip?

6 September 2025 9:00 am

When oversharing – and even inventing – stories of personal trauma is considered ‘validating’ and laudable we are in real trouble, says Darren McGarvey, speaking from experience

‘I’m a hypocrite and a total fraud’ – the confessions of a French Surrealist poet

20 July 2024 9:00 am

My writing is mere bricolage … whatever I do, I only half do’, wails Michel Leiris in the final volume of his self-lacerating autobiography