1. Writing
  2. Interviews
  3. (Page 6)

Interview | Richard Barnett on Wittgenstein, War and the ‘Shadow of Silence’

Interviews, Writing

Reading Ray Monk’s magnificent biography of Wittgenstein, I came across a letter to his nephew, written some time in the thirties, in which he said that ‘[the war] saved my life; I don’t know what I’d have done without it.’ To find a philosopher as perceptive and as unillusioned as Wittgenstein saying that the war had saved his life – and then to find he’d worked out much of the Tractatus while serving as a forward artillery observer, about the most dangerous posting anywhere in the war – stopped me dead […]

Interview | Nicky Wynne on St Paul’s ‘Remember Me’ Project

Interviews, Writing

‘Remember Me’ was first set up by St Paul’s Cathedral in May 2020. The online memorial commemorates those who have lost their lives during the COVID-19 pandemic and was put in place to support the bereft. The online platform received such a positive response that it was decided there would be a physical memorial at the Cathedral, so that visitors from everywhere, of all faiths and none, could attend to reflect and mourn at a place dedicated to remembering […]

Interview | John Maxwell O’Brien on Writing his Debut Novel ‘Aloysius the Great’

Interviews, Writing

Try as I may to masquerade as an Irishman, I am most certainly a New Yorker and an American. But my grandfather was born in a pub in Kilcullen, County Kildare, and that explains a great deal in and of itself. My father reminded us with monotonous regularity that we were direct descendants of Brian Boru, King of Munster and high king of Ireland. Perhaps that’s why he often referred to us as a royal pain in the ass. I did visit Ireland in 1968, kissed the stone at Blarney, and the damn thing kissed me back! […]

Interview | Chris Power on Russian Espionage, the Callousness of Writers, and How ‘Fiction Colonises Reality’

Interviews, Writing

It goes through that strange, transformative process, where you’re taking the real and grafting fictional elements onto it, and it starts to occupy a space where the two become entangled. Or, if you like, the fiction colonises the reality. It takes over. I spent so long writing and re-writing those scenes that the fictional elements, and the people who didn’t exist but who I put in those places, take on their own reality that they get in the way of your memories […]

Interview | Christopher Wilton-Steer on Photographing the Living History of the Silk Road

Events, Interviews, Writing

In 2019, travel photographer Christopher Wilton-Steer spent four months retracing the Silk Road, the historic trade route. Over a period of four months, he travelled 40,000 km overland by car, bus, train, ferry, horse and camel, traversing sixteen countries. He began his journey from London’s King’s Cross, where the show is staged (8th April 2021 until 16th June). The exhibition, which is sponsored by the Aga Khan Foundation and presented in partnership with King’s Cross […]

Interview | Caleb Femi on Poor, ‘Bartering’ Poetry and the Mythos of the South London Estate 

Interviews, Writing

Architectural philosophy and design were central to my approach in writing the collection. I’ve always been preoccupied with how the built environment affects or shapes the lives of human beings, specifically looking at materials likes concrete, the rigidness of them but also the flexibility or propensity of it to become flexible, depending on who is looking and interacting with it. And in that way, there was something new that needed to be built. I say this […]

Interview | Richard Zarzi on Love, Icons and Spiritualism

Interviews, Preview, Writing

Richard Zarzi is considered one of the world’s most prominent pop artists working today, having celebrated many icons in his work, including Kate Moss, Cara Delevingne, Chanel and Marilyn Monroe. His work created by projecting images onto a canvas screen, which he further instates with bold light and texture using a mixture of acrylics, resins and diamond dust. The result is a celebration of the icons’ charisma and beauty through an his distinctive signature style […]

Interview | Ben Schott on writing ‘racy’ scenes, the element of surprise and Jeeves and the Leap of Faith

Interviews, Writing

Ben Schott was best known for the hugely popular Schott’s Miscellany series until 2018, when he became a novelist. Described as his homage to the works of P. G. Wodehouse, Schott’s Jeeves and The King of Clubs was published with the blessing of the Wodehouse estate and received rapturous reviews. Schott keeps Bertie and Jeeves in their 1930s setting, but brings a faster pace, detailed endnotes, and a twist of espionage to satisfy the modern reader […]

‘Why I’m pleased humour isn’t taken seriously as an art form’ — an interview with author Fabrice Caro 

Interviews, Writing

Novel writing and comic strips are two different worlds, hence the difference in signature between Fabcaro and Fabrice Caro, though of course you find a bit of my style in both. I have two distinct approaches to writing. I’d even say that one is the opposite of the other: my comic strips are elliptical, focused on immediate effects and humour in particular. I’m down to the bone, so to speak. My desire to write novels came from a certain frustration with regard to words […]

Interview | Seán Hewitt on Tongues of Fire, the Androgynous Lyric and ‘Pre-elegy’

Interviews, Staff, Staff Picks, Writing

I’m not actually a fan of Wordsworth. Of all the grand Romantic poets, I love John Clare. What I balk at with Wordsworth might be something that I’m concerned about in my own writing. We do this a lot. I say I don’t like people that are perhaps similar to me. Or I recognise a tendency in myself for the Wordsworthian, which is something I try to hold back on. Perhaps when I read Wordsworth it makes me cringe because I recognise my own tendencies to want […]

Interview | ‘Our societies tend to reduce Islam to its political dimension’ – Sophie Van Der Linden on her novel Après Constantinople

Interviews, Writing

My aesthetic approach is primarily poetic and doesn’t really fit into ‘-ist’ suffixes. But I would be lying if I denied my intentions. One of those is providing models of strong women with intimate, sensual and intellectual responses to life. Another is to offer a different perspective of the Orient, and particularly of Islam. Because of the radicalism and terrorism that confront us […]

Interview | ‘The party that never stops’: Sarah Lucas on The Colony Room Club, Soho, with Darren Coffield

Interviews, Preview, Staff Picks, TLM Featured, Writing

I was with Damien Hirst and Angus Fairhurst (I imagine) and we popped in. It was dingy, green and crowded. Also smoky. Ian Board was behind the bar insulting people and swearing as they came in. I thought he was horrible. Someone said, ‘He’s alright when you get to know him.’ I thought, I’ll bear that in mind. I didn’t go back for a long while. By that time Ian was dead. He was still there in the form of his sculpted head which contained his ashes. Michael Wojas said that you can roll a pinch up […]

Interview | ‘Stories don’t protect us, but they do prepare us’ – Kirsty Logan on why we return to horror

Interviews, Writing

Here’s the thing: I like to be a queer writer. Being a writer is a part of my identity; being queer is a part of my identity. I don’t know that they’re the most important parts – but they’re important to me. Every writer wants their work to be read on many different levels. I want people to read my books and enjoy the stories – just on a surface level – and to be swept up in the narrative and transported somewhere else for a while. I’d also love it if readers enjoyed the language […]

Interview | Artist hana on ‘Inventing Artist Paints’ – her exhibition of eco-paints made from coconut, fruit and veg

Interviews, Preview, Writing

The art world is awash with self-taught painters these days, but the emergence of artist hana (styled in lower case) has taken many by surprise, not only because of her talent but because she has re-invented oil paint. Her paint is made from coconut shells, algae, seaweed, dried fruits and vegetables. All this has caught the eye of Noel Fielding, among others, who is endorsing her ground-breaking innovations. This week sees the opening of her first solo show […]

Interview | Alka Bagri on the Bagri Foundation ahead of ‘Tantra’ at the British Museum

Interviews, Preview, Writing

For the last thirty years, the Bagri Foundation has quietly supported projects that promote Asian culture in the UK. While some of its partnerships are high-profile — it is the lead donor of the British Museum’s blockbuster Tantra exhibition — it also supports a variety of smaller projects for the visual arts, literature, music, dance, performance and lectures, and is now expanding its activities into other territories […]

Interview | Michael Cisco on Weird Fiction, Cheerful Nihilism and Sex in Literature 

Interviews, Writing

Michael Cisco has been hailed by China Miéville as being ‘of a different kind and league from almost anyone writing today’. He is best known for his first novel The Divinity Student, winner of the International Horror Guild Award for Best First Novel of 1999. His novel The Great Lover was nominated for the 2011 Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novel of the Year, and declared the Best Weird Novel of 2011 by the Weird Fiction Review. His work has attracted attention in […]

Interview | Sculptor Guy Portelli on ‘Wight Spirit, 1968-70’ and the Isle of Wight Music Festival

Interviews, Writing

This summer sees Portelli also take on the role of curator for Masterpiece Art Gallery’s major exhibition Wight Spirit, 1968-70. History has been somewhat unkind to the 1970 Isle of Wight Music Festival. Its riotous atmosphere which saw over 600,000 people descend on Afton Down led Parliament to ban large open-air gatherings in the Isle of Wight County Council Act of 1971. But the festival remains a cultural landmark: it saw legends such as Jimi Hendrix […]

Interview | Emily Henry on ‘Beach Read’ and Writing Romance

Interviews, Writing

January Andrews has lost her faith in happy endings after suddenly losing her father and uncovering ugly truths about her parents’ marriage at his funeral. Moving into her father’s recently discovered beach house, the narrative follows a blossoming relationship between January and her neighbour and fellow writer, Augustus Everett, as they evolve from writing partners, to friends, to lovers. A perfect balance of drama, humour and romance, Beach Read is a heartfelt […]

Interview | James Shapiro on cinematic storytelling and ‘Shakespeare in a Divided America’

Interviews, Writing

My first exposure to Shakespeare wasn’t until the age of fourteen, at high school in Brooklyn. We were assigned Romeo and Juliet and set off on what felt to me like a ‘death march’ through the play. I hated it, didn’t even get the dirty bits my classmates sniggered at, and swore I’d never study Shakespeare again. I never did at university. What changed everything for me was seeing the plays performed […]

Interview | A. Naji Bakhti on ‘Between Beirut and the Moon’, inheritance and coming of age in Lebanon

Interviews, Writing

Between Beirut and the Moon (Influx Press, 2020) is Naji’s first novel, praised by Roddy Doyle as ‘engrossing, warm and gloriously funny’. Adam, the narrator, dreams of becoming an astronaut: but before he can be the first Arab on the moon, he must contend with issues much closer to home, as he comes of age in post-civil war Lebanon. On the phone from Beirut, I spoke to Naji about reaching an Anglophone readership, humour in the midst of conflict, and […]

Subscribe for the latest from the UK’s oldest literary magazine.

Sign up to our newsletter for the latest poetry and prose, news and competition updates, as well as 10% off our shop. 

You can unsubscribe any time by clicking the link in the footer of any email you receive from us, or directly on info@thelondonmagazine.org. Find our privacy policies and terms of use at the bottom of our website.
SUBSCRIBE