LitHouse podcast

The author of twelve novels, along with a number of non-fiction books and plays, Rachel Cusk is one of our most prominent contemporary writers. Her brave, razor sharp and original voice has made her …

Lately, much attention has been given to political attacks on prestigious writers. The attempted murder of Salman Rushdie and the deplatforming of Adania Shibli at the Frankfurt Book Fair sparked int…

Igoni Barrett is a Nigerian writer of novels and short stories, especially well known for his award-winning novel 2015 Blackass. In 2014, he was named on the Hay Festival's Africa39 list of African w…

What do the Mings, The Rameses’, the Romanovs, the Assads and the Clintons have in common? They are all family dynasties who, for better or worse, have influenced the history of the world.

Historian a…

Lecture by Denise DeCaires Narain

This lecture introduces two of the most prolific Caribbean women writers, Jean Rhys and Jamaica Kincaid, comparing their distinctive styles and thematic focus. Both w…

Leila Aboulela is a Sudanese writer, currently living in Scotland. She is the author of six award winning novels, including The Translator (1999), Bird Summons (2019) and River Spirit (2023), as well…

Elizabeth Strout is one of the most distinct voices in contemporary American literature, and beloved by readers and critics alike. Her international breakthrough came with the novel Olive Kitteridge,…

Elizabeth Strout is one of the most distinct voices in contemporary American literature, and beloved by readers and critics alike. She started writing at an early age, but it would take her many year…

Writer and therapist Glenn Bech sparked a larger debate about class issues in Denmark with his autobiographical novel The Fathership (forthcoming in Hazel Evans’ translation) and his manifesto Jeg an…

History is written by the victorious. But do we not also need to hear the story from the other side, from ordinary people caught in the middle of historical upheavals, forced to pick a side, or just …

The year is 1949, and the state of Israel is in its infancy. In the Negev desert, bordering Egypt, Israeli armed forces have set up camp with the mission to “cleanse it of any remaining Arabs” after …

Freedom of expression is never absolute, but subject to laws and social conventions. Threats to freedom of thought and speech can come directly from authoritarian states or religious institutions. Bu…

The year is 1995, and 16 year old Shy is sneaking out of the rural boarding school for “difficult” boys, named “Last Chance”. A long history of petty crime, expulsions and frustrated family members h…

Do you understand why I’ve decided to tell you about our family? If our stories survive, we will not die, even when our bodies are no longer here on this earth.

The Vietnam war was a watershed event i…

In some other world, in some other life, Pinto might’ve prayed in the morning, prayed his šaharit, prayed to be relieved of his abhorrent passion. But the only prayer that came to his mind now was to…

A masseuse who rises in the ranks to become Himmler’s confidant. A cross-dressing princess who spies for Japanese secret police in China. A Dutch Jew who personally hands over his friends to the Nazi…

In the novel Glory, we find ourselves in the fictional country Jidada, which is peopled with all kinds of animals; bleating sheep, a confident pig preacher, vicious dogs making up the country’s secur…

Joyce Carol Oates is one of the world’s greatest living writers, and is frequently cited as a candidate for the Nobel Prize in literature. It is truly a momentous occasion that Oates will visit the H…

In 2021, Abdulrazak Gurnah was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature, the first African-born writer to receive the award in close to 20 years. The Swedish Academy awarded Gurnah the prize «for his u…

Do artists have a social responsibility? Should art be «pure» and not related to ethical or political issues? What, exactly, is the role of art? These are questions that the American author Joyce Car…