The irony of the West’s close relationship with Saudi Arabia would be laughable, if it weren’t so troubling. When King Abdullah, of the ruling al-Saud family, died in January 2015, tributes gushed forth from world leaders. Prince Charles, David Cameron and Barack Obama, among others, flew to Riyadh to pay their respects to a man…
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A new study into Australian authors has found that it’s slim pickings when it comes to book earnings—especially for female authors. The Macquarie University study, headed by cultural economist Distinguished Professor David Throsby AO, surveyed over 1,000 Australian authors about their earnings and practices. On average, authors make $62,000 in total per year. Although nearly…
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Watching Lena Dunham’s Girls for the first time was an edifying experience. A large part of the show’s appeal for me—and perhaps for countless other teenagers and women in their early twenties—is its flawed and often hapless characters, who are relatable precisely because of their faults. Here was Hannah Horvath: podgy, solipsistic beyond help,…
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According to Martin Amis, that sharp satirist and white male English literary giant, there are two things that literature can’t do. The first is sex. Amis agrees with his father, Kingsley (that bigoted white male English literary giant), who believed that sex has the effect of de-universalising the reading experience. Good sex, Amis junior opines,…
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