Novelist, who teaches at New York University, says he finds it strange that progressive students currently ‘kind of support a fascist terrorist group’Salman Rushdie has said that the formation of a Palestinian state “right now” would mean a “Taliban-like state” is created.Commenting on the US campus protesters calling for a free Palestine, the author...

Butler is among several writers refusing to appear at the literary festival over sponsor Baillie Gifford’s alleged involvement in ‘technology and arms in Israel’Labour MP Dawn Butler and author Grace Blakeley are among those who have withdrawn from scheduled appearances at Hay festival over its sponsorship by investment management firm Baillie Gifford.Butler...

Influencers and politicians use snappy cliches to get you on side – but you can fight fire with fireSince the moment I learned about the concept of the “thought-terminating cliche” I’ve been seeing them everywhere I look: in televised political debates, in flouncily stencilled motivational posters, in the hashtag wisdom that clogs my social media feeds....

A formal tribute to the death of a fellow poet cannot, in the end, restrain its passionAn Epitaph on the Death of Nicholas GrimaldBehold this fleeting world, how all things fade, 
How every thing doth pass and wear away; 
Each state of life, by common course and trade, 
Abides no time, but hath a passing day. 
For look, as life, that pleasant dame,...

A French cartoonist has doubts about her boyfriend in Mirion Malle’s third book in English, a striking hymn to women and solidarityEnter the Faber/Observer/Graphica graphic short story prize 2024I always read the acknowledgments first – is there anyone who doesn’t? – and thanks to this, I came to So Long Sad Love by the French-born, Canada-based cartoonist...

The Pulitzer prize-winning critic turned author identifies a polarised and unstable world and suggests solutions: embrace risk, welcome otherness and open dialogueFor more than three decades from 1983, Michiko Kakutani was the lead book critic for the New York Times. She won a Pulitzer for her “fearless and authoritative” criticism, shorthand for an...