Every issue we find an exciting new writer whom you should keep an eye on and ask them a few questions.

This issue we present Swithun Cooper, a young poet whose works have appeared in New Poetries III (Carcanet) and the magazines Time Out, The London Magazine and Acumen. He won the prestigious Eric Gregory Award from The Society of Authors this year.
The Literateur is very excited about this assured and brilliantly inventive new voice in poetry. We predict he will be snapped up for a debut collection soon…
Your poems are …

Guy Cuthbertson
Anyone and everyone wears red trousers these days, even women, but there was a time when they meant something. Red trousers were for showing off, for standing out, and they were for men. Yes, women have worn them in the past, but they were cross-dressing, wearing menswear whether they knew it or not. There’s a wonderful Henri Matisse painting from the 1920s called Odalisque in Red Trousers, in which a reclining woman stretches out in red trousers that end just below the knee. In another, …

Jeremy Clarke
I
I know by the new and sudden silence that the dawn is coming.
The wind withdraws and the rain rewinds
and I stand in the street and listen.
Nothing. A beautiful nothing
carrying the long low note – a half hum, half mile away stadium roar,
a rumour of noise, a residue of past activity that remains
like a stain on the silence of the city.
And I am an ear
tuned to the chatter of litter, to the laughter of a leaf in flight
and the soundless shouts of flashing lights
alarming the air.
I’m the eye of …

A challenge to the old adage
Rebecca Hampson

I love those old books with the leather (or faux-leather, or fabric, or… etc) covers and thin pages that by smell alone make you feel magically smarter. They hold a certain gravitas, an unspoken understanding that with these dusty tomes comes a wealth of knowledge, a deep sense of history, and possibly some great fairytales.
But like everything once held sacred, the blaring consumerism of modernity has long controlled the aesthetics of newly published books. One is more likely, these days, to find neon colours, …

Selena Wisnom
It never seemed to matter when the black ones died. As it stopped breathing bubbles it bloated to the surface like a globule in a lava lamp, and bulged there as its scales already began to peel, a single wet dark eye tadpole-like reflecting the ceiling of its tank, black plastic grating, and the other staring down, staring right down at her as it floated on the membrane between the world’s one eye fixed on each. She wondered what it had been thinking as it died and whether it …

SIR FRANK KERMODE is the author of many influential works of literary criticism and has been a major presence in the critical landscape for the second half of the Twentieth Century. He talks to The Literateur about academic careers, the dubious pleasures of Theory, the role of the critic, and the end of the world.
Tom Bailey
The Literateur: Sir Frank, it’s a privilege to be here to interview you today. Thank you very much for giving your time.
First off, you have been some years outside of the academic machine now – …

The Poet Hosts His Annual Office Christmas Party
I play Solitaire on the computer and sweep the floor with myself.
To enhance the mood, I’ve strung fairy lights across the bookcase
and pinned a sprig of mistletoe over the door.
It’s fancy dress, and I’ve come as Björn Borg circa 1978 –
the trademark headband keeping my straggly blond fringe out of my eyes.
I pull down my tight white shorts,
sit on the flatbed scanner and photocopy my bits. Hilarious.
Swigged from the cap of the bottle a small tot of single malt
eases the mind, yet …

BUTTERFLY
Sonya Hartnett
Hamish Hamilton, Paperback, 224pp., ISBN 978-0-241-14446-6. Price: £12.99
I.E.Sawmill
Mother was right: judging a book by its cover is wrong. It is an indiscretion. It is as unjust as it is lazy and no doubt indicates that the reader’s only requirement of their bookshelf is visual gratification. Think what they would miss out on! They would never touch The Great Gatsby, for example, just because they have only seen the Penguin 1974 edition and harbour a childhood aversion to Robert Redford’s big smug face.
It is perhaps a lesser sin of …

An Interview with

WILL SELF

The leading novelist and columnist Will Self talks to us about his latest book Psycho Too, comedy (or the lack thereof) in his works, becoming domesticated, arty parties, and his next novel Walking to Hollywood.

An Interview with SIR CHRISTOPHER RICKS

Sir Christopher Ricks is one of the most important and influential critics active today. Described by W.H.Auden as ‘exactly the kind of critic that every poet dreams of finding’, he has continuously been a leading figure in literary criticism since the Sixties, famous not only for his sensitive essays but also as a captivating lecturer.
Part I
Part II

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Interview with PAUL MULDOON

The Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, described as ‘the most significant English-language poet born since the second World War’ (TLS), talks to us about his latest work ‘Wayside Shrines’, puns, pride vs poetry, and taking candy from strange clichés.

Articles

- T.S. Eliot Prize Reading Report: At the British poetry world’s biggest annual prize, a strong shortlist including three former winners battle for the prestige and the cash.

- ‘Writ in Water’: Shelley, Byron, Keats and the Italian Sea

- The Fine Press Book Fair, Oxford: Printing, the pulpy preening prettiness of it all

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Keep an eye on…

We present an exciting new voice in literature and ask them a few questions:

- Michael Mckimm

- Roast Books and A.C.Tillyer

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Poetry

- Returning by Archie Davies

- ‘Renewed’ by Jeremy Clarke

- ‘Walt’s Last Stand’ by Scott Jamison

- ‘Apparition’ by Teo Tewson-Bozic

- ‘With Hands On Wheels’ by Eley Williams

- ‘Afternoons’ by Christopher Crawford
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Short Stories

- ‘Don Juan of Seville’ by Grace Andreacchi

- ‘You Might Be Perfect’ by Michael Perfect

- ‘Modern Sign’ by Laurence Klavan

Reviews

Incisive comments on latest releases by our team of reviewers.

THE LEAP
Anna Enquist
The Toby Press, Paperback, 84 pages., ISBN-13 978 1 59264 258 8, Price: £7.99

Rebecca Hampson
Like her early novels, the pieces in Enquists’ A Leap make tangible use of her academic background in both music and psychology. A collection of five monologues, most of which were commissioned individually for performance, A Leap brings to life the connection between person and place and the search for home within adverse circumstances. Indeed, within many of the monologues the setting feels like a second or third character; Rotterdam, the common factor …