Salman Rushdie
The acclaimed author, who is publishing a long-awaited memoir of his decade in hiding from a murderous fatwa, finds himself threatened once more by fanatics over The Satanic VersesFollowing several days of rumour, it was confirmed last week that Salman...
What’s the definition of a great book?
As the inevitable rows on prize juries testify, it's not easy to say – but well-informed argument does provide some useful pointersMartyn Goff – formerly the administrator of the Man Booker prize, a puckish and highly literate man about town, novel...
Downton Abbey’s Matthew Crawley to be Booker judge
Man Booker judges' panel to be chaired by Sir Peter StothardActor Dan Stevens, best known as Downton Abbey's Matthew Crawley – the war hero consigned to a wheelchair for life before making an abrupt recovery – is to be a judge for next year's Man B...
Booker club
Characters without personality, comedy without mirth – how McEwan's worst novel won the Booker is a deep mysteryBecause Booker prize deliberations go on behind closed doors, we'll never really know what led the judging panel to Ian McEwan's Amsterdam...
A publishing broadside from the streets of Hebden Bridge
Arthritic London publishers. Agents stuck in rusting tramlines. Come north, talented young writers, says guest blogger Kevin Duffy, and the Yorkshire Pennines will make your name.We have a problem in Hebden Bridge. Angry poets. They hang round street c...
A publishing broadside from the streets of Hebden Bridge
Arthritic London publishers. Agents stuck in rusting tramlines. Come north, talented young writers, says guest blogger Kevin Duffy, and the Yorkshire Pennines will make your name.We have a problem in Hebden Bridge. Angry poets. They hang round street c...
Why flatpack fiction will always be two dimensional
As the Booker shortlist proved, too many modern novels are assembled for a marketThere's a fairly widespread view that English fiction is in the doldrums. This year's showcase for the contemporary novel, the Man Booker prize, a bellwether for our liter...
From the archive, 8 November 1975: Masterpieces, medicine and bedside tables
Originally published in the Guardian on 8 November 1975[James] Joyce's Nora was what you would call a scrubber nowadays. He met her while she was skivvying in a pub. Once settled in Trieste she used to sit around all day in sexy knickers blowing bubble...
Peter Stothard to chair 2012 Booker jury
Peter Stothard, editor of the Times Literary Supplement, is to chair the judges for the 2012 awardAfter Stella Rimington brought a storm of righteous literary rage down on this year's Man Booker prize by announcing her quest for "readable" books, organ...
From Booker to Bafta: do arts awards matter?
The awards season, with all its squabbles, is under way. Actor Diana Quick and Poetry Society chief Judith Palmer discuss winning, losing, and marching off in a huffAs awards season gets under way and the inevitable controversies unfold, Oliver La...
The conversation: Should we celebrate scathing book reviews?