Twenty years ago, I spent some time in Scotland on a scholarship as a doctoral student at the University of Stirling (though I eventually moved to Glasgow). I have kept since then an interest in Scottish Literature (you’ve read here about my beloved Iain M. Banks), and, intermittently, in the matter of Scottish independence. I […]
I remember asking a few years ago a well-published Spanish writer –I was going to say ‘professional’ but she actually works as a lecturer– whether she ran a blog of her own. Elia Barceló, that was the author in question, answered she’d rather not write without getting paid (though I see she relented, at least […]
I have been VERY busy finishing the edition of a collective volume which gathers together my students’ essays on their experience of reading the Harry Potter series. This volume is called Addictive and Wonderful, a phrase borrowed from the essay in it by Marta Canals, and will hopefully be available on the internet soon. I’m […]
Almost exactly two years ago I published a post titled “The other books: The problem of non-fiction”. I started by worrying about whether it is really true that as readers age the novel loses its charm and the other prose books gain ground in our preferences as readers. As I approach my 48th birthday I […]
The cosmopolitan novel, according to Berthold Schoene’s eponymous volume (2009), opposes both the novel limited by the national territory (whether it is nationalist or not), and the post-colonial novel, which questions the very essence of the territorial from a critical position. The cosmopolitan writer has been freed by globalization to write about any theme located […]
I’m congratulating myself for having given my students the chance to teach me –about fan fiction. I know about this phenomenon academically, meaning that I’ve read academic work on it. I’m not, however, a reader or a writer and, so, I delegated the task of instructing my Harry Potter class on the subject to those […]
Two pieces published within days by Alison Flood in the Books section of The Guardian catch my attention. I’m wondering here how they connect –I think they do. The first one announces that “Most writers earn less than £600 a year, survey reveals” (http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/17/writers-earn-less-than-600-a-year); the second reports that “Writers attack ‘overrated’ Anglo-American literature at Jaipur […]
Last post of 2013!! Other bloggers use the label ‘Kindle freak’ meaning someone in love with their e-book readers, as sold by Amazon. This is not quite how I use the label here, as, although I like my Kindle Touch e-book reader fine I am not much in love with Amazon’s attempts to control me […]
A few months ago I saw with my two little nieces the Disney film Bolt (2008). This is a delicious comedy about a cute dog who, like Jim Carrey in The Truman Show, has no idea that his life is happening in front of hidden cameras. In this particular case, Bolt, a star in a […]
Back in 2001, Nicholas Blincoe and Matt Thorne edited an anthology of short fiction, All Hail the New Puritans, which aimed at defining a new literary school. This, basically, applied the minimalist principles of the Dogme 95 film movement to prose fiction, as stated in the (controversial) manifesto that opens the collection. A few years […]