'Kafka seems both genius and ingenue, and the contradiction brings him closer to us.'

Chris Power on Kafka, Lily Meyer on Neel Mukherjee, Padgett Powell on Paul Auster, leigh haber on Claire Messud, and Alexis Coe on Erik Larson

bookmarks.reviews/5-reviews-you-…

for the latest edition of Literary Review I worked on some excellent pieces – Morten Høi Jensen on Kafka
ella fox-martens 🛸 on Honor Levy (Honor Levy)
Rhodri Lewis on Shakespeare novels
Ed Cumming on Kaliane Bradley
zoe g on National Theatre's Dickens show
literaryreview.co.uk/current-issue

Denis Johnson's 'Sway' is a favorite for the way it opens so awkwardly, archaically, then going wobbly like a bar stool. 'heir bones the bones of' end-rhyming 'hyena/arena' just to careen into that 'tarantellasmic sway' and destroy us with those doublings after the colon: two.

I've been reading through, skipping, jumping back, rereading, hopping around the Ross Benjamin translation of Kafka's diaries for the last couple of months now like a drunken flea. But at least it hasn't put me in the hospital. Hope you're feeling better Chris.

'Brilliant' Natasha Brown

'I enjoyed it hugely' David Nicholls

'An acid chamber piece. I loved it' Chris Power

'A sharp book, beautifully written' Rumaan Alam

'A perfect and perfectly merciless novel' Sarah Bernstein

I am so proud to publish Jo's #TheHypocrite today!

'The brilliance of the story is to allow both things to be simultaneously true.' --Chris Power signature clarity brought to bear on a restored edition of Kafka's diaries, tr Ross Benjamin. theguardian.com/books/2024/apr…

Please share widely - the second year of the Martha Mills Young Writers’ Prize. We’re thrilled to have the wonderful Philip Pullman as a judge - Martha was such a fan of his books

I spent all of March in hospital, much of it in Kafka’s mysterious, troubled, frustrated and fascinating company. Here’s my review of his unexpurgated Diaries theguardian.com/books/2024/apr…

for the new(ish) April issue of Literary Review I commissioned a number of pieces, including Deborah Levy on Bowie, Rosa Lyster on creative non-fiction, Jon Savage on Pulp, mike harrison on Oyamada, Richard Williams on Kind of Blue, Chris Power on HGarner
literaryreview.co.uk/current-issue/…

Several years after abandoning The Trial, Kafka was staying at a hotel where he was mistakenly called Josef K

Happy birthday Samuel Beckett, who left me forever haunted by this short story

I love Helen Garner and this, by Chris Power in Literary Review, is excellent.

I wrote about Helen Garner’s stellar novella, The Children’s Bach, for Literary Review

Love that Serra was a painter until he saw Las Meninas, realized he couldn't top it and threw all his stuff into a river

Yes, Kafka

“Our children are dying, we are dying. What are you doing, where is the world?”

Amid starvation and desperation in Gaza, Jomana Karadsheh Scott reports on the deaths of 12 people as they attempted to reach aid dropped into the sea.

Producer: @ssirgany

In June I’ll be talking to Rachel Cusk at an Intelligence Squared event in London about her extraordinary and devastating novel Parade. Tickets: eventbrite.co.uk/e/rachel-cusk-…