Will Self is a prolific writer of both fiction and journalism. His most recent publication, Psycho Too, is a collection of the ‘Psychogeography’ columns he wrote for several years in The Independent, accompanied by drawings by Ralph Steadman.
Self has a daunting public persona, as his varied appearances on television and radio indicate. For this reason I was somewhat nervous on approaching his London home and made even more so at his startled, staring reaction on discovering that I don’t take sugar in my tea. However, once ensconced in his writing …

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.

He is the author of such renowned works as Milton’s Grand Style, The Force of Poetry and Dylan’s Visions of Sin as well as the editor of the still authoritative edition of Tennyson’s poetry. A …

CR: I think that a price is paid for absolutely everything in life. That we’re sitting here, you and I, means that I’m not sitting in a sunken sauna and you’re not having a gin and tonic. Everything we do must mean not doing something or other.

I think study is professional. But it must not become simply professionalised, it must keep in touch with amateur virtues without yielding to the amateurish. So that’s a Scylla and Charybdis.

PM: Pride and poetry are really antithetical. We were talking about it a little bit earlier. The minute you get proud, I think you’re sort of dead. In that sense I don’t even feel that I myself, though I’m sort of implicated I suppose, have much part in it. I am a medium for the poem, it’s really not about me. Anonymity is almost an ideal in art, for me.

Of course perhaps all poems are in some sense an experiment and in some ways avant-garde because it shouldn’t quite look like anything else you’ve ever seen. It is something that has, ideally, not been done before.

A feature in which we present an exciting new writer whom you should keep an eye on and ask them a few questions.

Questions by Dan Eltringham
The Literateur is delighted to present up-and-coming poet Michael McKimm.
Michael McKimm was born in Belfast in 1983 and grew up near the Giant’s Causeway. He graduated from the Warwick Writing Programme in 2004 and won an Eric Gregory Award in 2007. His poetry is most recently published in Dossier Journal (New York), Horizon Review, Magma, Oxford Poetry, PN Review, The Warwick Review, The Wolf and …

John Banville is the author of several novels including The Sea, which won the Man Booker Prize in 2005. After publishing three crime novels as Benjamin Black, he has returned with his latest work, The Infinities. He speaks to us about his new book, not despising the audience, lies, reality and pagan gods.
Interviewed by Katherine Wootton
TL: You write reviews and you were a literary editor and section editor for a while; how do you feel about things moving online and the newspaper books sections slowly diminishing or being put online?
JB: …

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

An A-Z of Possible Worlds by A.C.Tillyer

The Literateur is delighted to feature new publishing house Roast Books and the author of their latest release, A.C.Tillyer.
Roast Books was established in 2008 by Faye Dayan to meet the demand for unusual fiction using innovative new formats. They launched with Great Little Reads, a series of individual little novellas.
Their latest release, An A-Z of Possible Worlds by A.C.Tillyer, is a …

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 …

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 – …