John Baker’s Blog

Peter Monaghan in The Chronicle Review looks back at the fate of a first novel:
Since William Heinemann Ltd. first issued it in London, the novel has sold about 11 million copies in some 50 countries and as many languages. (This month Anchor Books will issue a 50th-aniversary edition.) In the United States, in an era [...]

A nice piece on Arthur Rimbaud from Ellis Sharp. These are extracts, but the whole article is worth your attention.
Rimbaud provides the exemplary example of a writer who packs it all in. What is even more astonishing than this case of a writer who quits is how early, in his case, it happened. Before his [...]

Yann Martel goes into the void. The author of Life of Pi considers the genesis of his novel: I wandered around Bombay in a state of interior bleakness.
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Spain is hoping to recognise its authoritarian past officially. After months of haggling, and fierce opposition from conservatives, the ruling Socialists have introduced a bill that condemns Franco’s [...]

 
Terror of Flight 101: An echo of Orwell.
The flight leaves Heathrow airport’s Terminal Four, every Wednesday bearing the number KQ101. The echo of George Orwell’s Room 101 is unhappily appropriate. On this Kenya Airways jet, many asylum-seekers’ worst nightmares do come true. KQ101 is the deportation flight chartered by the British Government to return refugees [...]