Writing
Elena Ferrante’s unmasking was intrusive but inevitable
It's naive to think that authors can repell their readers' curiosity about them
Javier Marias’s game of mirrors in Madrid
The playful fiction of Javier Marias is brilliantly funny
Bad Sex Awards: the most cringeworthy extracts ever nominated
From Tony Blair to Morrissey, some of the worst sex passages ever written
Iris Murdoch: the sovereignty of love
Iris Murdoch's many affairs fuelled her intellectual adventures
#AdviceForYoungJournalists: take it with a pinch of salt
A new hashtag explores the relationship between media and society... and makes bad jokes
Novels are luxuries, not necessities
Tim Parks brilliantly skewers the pieties of the literary world
Who killed satire?
We’ve abandoned our tradition of blowing raspberries unto power
Alain Robbe-Grillet: Bucketfuls of semen
A new DVD boxset shows how the French novelist went from author to auteur
Taking tea with Nadine Gordimer
Talking sex and politics with the late great lady of South African letters