Culture

In conversation with Martin Amis- Part 4: Meeting Colombia's assassins

May 17, 2009
Placeholder image!

Earlier this year, journalist Toby Muse interviewed Martin Amis for Prospect, at the Hay Festival in Cartegena, Colombia. First Drafts now features the highlights of that conversation as four exclusive web-casts, with Amis expressing views on topics ranging from terrorism and Barack Obama to his new (much anticipated) novel, and the challenges of portraying the sexual revolution in fiction. You can view Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 of the Amis interviews at these links, plus a web exclusive article from our arts and books editor, Tom Chatfield, looking at the troubled genesis of his forthcoming book: Martin Amis, return of the master. In the fourth and final part of our series of Martin Amis interviews, below, Amis remembers an earlier trip to Colombia, and a visit to a home for retired hitmen. Although Amis doesn't expand on what he found interesting about the "crippled assassins of Cali," no Amis fan will miss the similarities with some of his classic themes: once 'terrifying men' emasculated by physical frailty; and the banality of violence.