“dad was one of the greatest teachers ever”

Novels, for me, have come from somewhere I wasn’t looking. In my twenties I was carrying an idea about a woman wandering around Ireland on a quest she didn’t understand and I sat in the Reading Room o

I guess my main preoccupations at 16 were just trying to stay out of trouble. I was incredibly unsuccessful with finding girlfriends and things like that. Really, very, very unsuccessful. I think I wa

Alex Hutchinson

Each month a reader writes to a loved one in the afterlife and Mandy Masters tunes in to share their reply. This month Charlie Parker-Griffiths writes to her grandad, Nick

34 / REVELATORY PLAYWRIGHT BY LYNN NOTTAGE I live for those incomparable moments when you encounter the work of an artist who opens a door to reveal a fresh perspective on the world. This transformati

Ian McEwan is strolling through the garden of his Cotswolds manor house. Bees waft drowsily between wildflowers. Plump apples, pears and walnuts bauble the trees. Vibrant cerulean-blue damselflies hov