Copyright: Philippe Cheng

James Shapiro is a professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and author of the award-winning 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare. His most recent book, Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? explores the origins and various incarnations of the authorship controversy surrounding Shakespeare’s plays. The Literateur was fortunate enough to meet James in London, and emailed off some questions regarding his latest work.
Questions by Zoia Alexanian and Dan Eltringham
The Literateur: It seems like the biggest problem plaguing Shakespearean biography is scholars’ projections of …

Zero’s Neighbour: Sam Beckett
Hélène Cixous, translated by Laurent Milesi
Polity, pp85;
ISBN-13:978-0-7456-4416-5
Publication date: May 2010RRP: £12.99
Phil Sidney
Ah, Samuel Beckett- still at the crease after all these years! Along with P.G. Wodehouse (the other literary genius of the 20th century to merit an entry in Wisden), Beckett is still basking in the sunlight of readers’ attention (Nick Clegg among them), inspiring scores of publications; yet unlike his partner’s dashing, cavalier strokeplay, Beckett is an author of the Boycott mould (Samuel Boycott?), grinding out his bleak innings and giving nothing away to the probing …

Barefoot in the Park’s poetry&prose competition in conjunction with The Literateur is now open for submissions.

From sonnets to science fiction, riddles to ridiculous satire, and frank confessionals to fictitious obituaries, variety is welcome.
The lucky (and lyrically-talented) winners will receive the honour of having their work published in The Literateur, an online literary magazine which has published work from up and coming poets like Swithun Cooper, and interviews with writers like Hanif Kureishi and Will Self.
The winners will be announced on the Barefoot Festival stage, on 6th June at 8pm.
Deadline for …

Zen Cymru
by Peter Finch
Seren Press; Paperback;
72 pages; Price £7.99;
ISBN:978-1-85411-500-3
Rory Waterman
Cardiff does not have a Poet Laureate, but if it did Peter Finch would surely be a shoo-in. Few poets enjoy Finch’s popularity or ooze such a sense of place, and this has been reflected in countless commissioned poems for the city, several of which make their way into Zen Cymru. He is also a brash, innovative, prolific and furiously up-to-date performer of his work, and the back cover of this collection states that ‘his poems have the immediacy and the dramatic …

Seeing Stars
by Simon Armitage
Faber and Faber; Hardback;
88 pages; Price £12.99
ISBN 9780571249909
Alastair Beddow
Simon Armitage must be feeling productive. In the last five years alone he has published three volumes of poetry, edited a collection of poetry about birds, written Gig, a non-fiction prose work about his musical influences, and produced acclaimed translations of Homer’s Odyssey and the Middle English romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Add to this his regular appearances on television and radio, an ongoing tour and a forthcoming ambitious project to walk and document the Pennine Way, …