‘Diaspora life comes with its own kind of weight. We’re not in the rubble, but we carry it inside us. That contradiction, being physically far but emotionally tied in, is a big part of what it means to be Palestinian in exile.’
Jamie Cameron speaks to Mai Serhan.
‘I was, in that moment, the thirty-four-year-old lecturer discussing the craft of writing with a young British student in my office at Aberystwyth University on Penglais hill. I was, also, the fifteen-year-old boy in his parent’s bathroom on the sixth floor of an old building in Beirut sheltering from Israeli airstrikes of 2006.’
A. Naji Bakhti on Beirut, Gaza and Glangwili.
‘The real merit of British painting is that it is at its best romantic, unclassical, particular, fanatical, self-obsessed and the result of close observation in a misty country that has longish winter evenings.’
A survey of British painters in 1961.
‘I have the sense that Vidal is frequently accused of cruelty when, in fact, he is simply being candid, a quality not greatly appreciated in a literary community which tends to view all criticism as conspiratorial or personally motivated.’
From 1981, an interview with Gore Vidal.
‘I have seen it standing up, grey, / Gaunt, as though no sunlight / Could ever thaw out the music / Of its great bell; terrible / In its own way, for religion / Is like that.’
From 1963, poetry by R. S. Thomas.
‘A novelist working well and honestly, and only saying what he knows and what he understands, will in fact tell a lot of important truths about his society. This is why tyrannical societies are often frightened of novelists.’
From June 1968, an interview with Iris Murdoch.
‘The ongoing capacity of the sonnet to allow for both chaos and control is one that will ensure its viability even in our increasingly fractious and factional of times.’
Paul Muldoon on the sonnet.
‘I have always written in the first person. I find it extremely difficult to use the third person because we are all, deep down, incurable individualists.’
From 1985, an interview with Natalia Ginzburg.
‘I remember being cross at work when Google were getting rid a bit of software and the announcement said Google is “sunsetting” this product. Sunsetting! You can’t have the sunset.’
Joseph Williams speaks to Ben Pester.
‘What is true is that the dry as dust academic thing on the one hand and the sloppy solarplexus thing on the other, end in both cases in utter artistic death. But the writers form a great line in between those two and some are more at one end and some are more at the other.’
From 1960, an interview with Christopher Isherwood.
‘I love the fact that Americans are still working out concepts like, what is freedom? What does freedom look like? Is it libertarian? Is it a socialist thing? Is it more of a free market thing? They grapple with the big things.’
Emmeline Armitage speaks to Joanna Pocock.
‘I fell into a melancholy train of thought. I wasn’t suited to live under Fascism but Fascism would win. It was the worst people who won wars.’
From 1955, short fiction by Italo Calvino.
‘When we die we become what we have loved, and were I to be vaporised tomorrow, the bulk of me would soon be staring out at the world through those topaz panes at which I now dream my life away looking in.’
Cyril Connolly on the fear of death.
Ann Goldstein discusses the oxymoron of the ‘celebrated translator’, her early encounters with Italian through Dante and the story of how she became Ferrante’s translator. Goldstein reflects on Ferrante’s unique syntax and style, as well as the broader challenges of Italian–English translation.
‘That they have been aided by a culture which celebrates men behaving badly and football as an art form is without doubt.’
From 1997, Archie Cotterell’s take on Oasis.
Its twelfth UK edition, and its ninth at the British Library, JLF London returned this June with a weekend of expansive and cross-cultural conversation. With nearly 40 talks across literature, art, gardening, food, music and film, the programme was diverse and incisive.
‘Short stories are our natural mode. There’s nothing intimidating about the short story. We have been reading and telling them our whole lives.’
An essay on the short story form by Wendy Erskine, reproduced with permission from 22 Fictions.
‘I don’t know if it’s very interesting to read fiction where you can feel that the author is judging the character. It’s so important that the novel be a space of non-judgement, for the readers to take from it what they will.’
Rosa Appignanesi interviews Lauren Elkin.
‘Poetry is nothing if not the record of just how the forces of the Universe try to redress some balance disturbed by human error.’
From 1971, an interview with Ted Hughes.
‘This is where I say to any budding writers out there: write historical fiction!’
Gurnaik Johal on The London Magazine Podcast.
‘The insouciant yet deeply serious quality of Notley’s writing struck me. Here was a poet eschewing all templates, excavating the self with both horror and humour.’
Momtaza Mehri pays tribute to Alice Notley who passed away this May at the age of 79.
‘What about the fate of our children … is there nothing to be done for them?’
This essay by Henry Miller was originally published in the July 1959 edition of The London Magazine.
‘Our London iteration is a vibrant affirmation of multilingual literary connectivities. At this volatile moment of change and transformation, we seek to make sense of our fractured world, and to explore and understand it through our shared stories.’
Namita Gokhale on JLF London 2025 at the British Library.
‘The loneliness I felt, sitting at that table eating my sandwich, was breathtaking. It was a feeling I didn’t know I was capable of summoning.’
New short fiction by Sam Corbett.
