Does knotted string constitute ‘writing’?
What particularly excites Silvia Ferrara, the author of The Greatest Invention, is not language per se but writing – that…
Experiences of Eton — and the success it rewards
In the summer of 2019, the journalist Anita Sethi was on a train travelling across northern England when she was…
Wouldn’t the migrant crisis make fantastic reality TV? Timur Vermes’s The Hungry and the Fat reviewed
The context for The Hungry and the Fat, Timur Vermes’s new satirical novel, is not as far-fetched as all that.…
Web of deceit: disinformation could prove the most powerful weapon of all
We could begin almost anywhere. But let’s start in Ukraine, with Babar Aliev. Babar is a former gang leader who…
Making the case for multilingualism – a timely reminder
English as the world’s lingua franca isn’t going anywhere. Why, then, should we Anglophones bother to learn another language? What’s…
Love in a time of people-trafficking: Among the Lost, by Emiliano Monge, reviewed
From the very first pages of Among the Lost, we’re engaged, and compromised. Estela and Epitafio are our main anchors,…
It’s thought that counts when it comes to good prose
This is a sentence. As is this — not an exceptionally beautiful one, but a sentence all the same, just…
The misery of policing the US–Mexico border
Francisco Cantú’s mother is surprised when he announces he’s joining the Border Patrol and going to work in the Arizona…
Packing away my 35,000 books was like writing my own obituary
Alberto Manguel is a kind of global Reader Laureate: he is reading’s champion, its keenest student and most zealous proselytiser,…
The enigma of Enric Marco
Enric Marco has had a remarkable life. A prominent Catalan union activist, a brave resistance fighter in the Spanish Civil…
Do myths and folklore damage children’s brains?
Children’s fantasy literature has never been just one thing. Animal fables, folk and fairy tales were not originally intended for…
Genocide is named and shamed
Prosecution for genocide or crimes against humanity is now a given in international law. But before the Nuremberg Trials, these two groundbreaking notions didn’t exist. Daniel Hahn describes their origins and inspiration
Quentin Blake brings comfort and joy
His professional achievements aside, Quentin Blake’s life has been rather short on biographical event, so this book is not a…
The writing on the wall at Saqqara is plain to see
Available from the Spectator Bookshop, £20.00. Tel: 08430 600033
The weather: a very British obsession
As I got into a Brighton taxi this morning, my driver’s first words were ‘apparently it’ll clear in a couple…
Milan Kundera’s fun-free festival
We begin in Paris with an introduction to five insignificant friends. One (Ramon) is walking past the new Chagall exhibition,…
Reading one book from every country in the world sounds like fun - until you come to North Korea
One day in 2011, while perusing her bookshelves, Ann Morgan realised her reading habits were (to her surprise) somewhat parochial.…
Europe in 60 languages
So Basque is an ergative language! Well, I never. I couldn’t have told you that a week ago. I even…
