Florida (2018) Lauren Groff’s second collection of short stories, Florida, plunges us into a hot and humid world, where swamp creatures slither over the thresholds of human existence, and tensions drip from rain-soaked leaves. It stages a multi-faceted exploration of a domesticity fraying at its edges, eroded by a pervasive sense of societal, political and […]Read More
2 months on from the previous post, the first ever semester of Swansea Universities’ International Dylan Thomas Prize Module has come to an end. The excitement surrounding this module did not die with the handing in of final assignments however! We were all invited to the prize ceremony to meet the shortlisted authors, attend the […]Read More
Jacob Fleming is a student at Swansea University currently studying a module in the Dylan Thomas prize, making him one of the first students in the UK to study a module based solely on a literary prize. Here in the first of two pieces, he provides an exclusive update on the progress of the […]Read More
“Heathcliff// it’s me Cathy, I’ve come home // I’m so // cold, won’t you let me in your // window”. We all know the lyrics to the Kate Bush song, the mournful masterpiece taking its name and inspiration from a masterpiece of literature, Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. I recently read the book for the first time, prompted […]Read More
Juno Dawson is a Young Adult author, who, in 2014, was awarded the title ‘Queen of Teen’ – an award given to writers of teen fiction. This is due to the success of her books, many of which feature LGBT+ characters. Juno Dawson is a transgender female and came out in 2015, after already establishing […]Read More
To celebrate LGBT+ history month, Megan Tarbuck takes a look at the life and literature of Virginia Woolf. Read More
Title: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman Author: Laurence Sterne What Do I Think Of It?: What do you get when you cross Jonathan Swift with Daniel Defoe and throw in a splash of Carrollesque surrealism? You get Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne, clergyman-turned-author. This is a riotous, 18th-century mock-autobiography of the fictional wag Tristram Shandy, who […]Read More
Down and Out in Paris and London is more than just a novel. It’s an analysis of poverty so profound and real that the reader is made to feel dirty, cold, and rejected by the ruthless society of the 1930s. It’s also terribly relevant in a world reeling from the realisation that globalism might not work for […]Read More
Around this time last year, I was writing a Christmas list and looking for something a bit more imaginative to put on it (something that gets harder with each year). I decided I would ask for a subscription to a renowned literary journal. As you do. Granta is a long standing and widely read literary […]Read More
The fields of art history and physics don’t often brush shoulders. Students of these subjects at uni only ever see each other at graduation; there is very little similarity between manipulating mathematical equations and studying the composition of a Monet landscape. Calculus was never explored by Cezanne.Read More
Maya Angelou: legendary feminist author, poet and spokeswoman against racism. Beyoncé Knowles-Carter: the most influential singer-songwriter of the modern day and advocate of black and women’s rights. It is without doubt that these two women are politically and artistically iconic, and this makes Beyoncé’s music the perfect complement to Angelou’s writing. I Know Why the […]Read More
Stephen King once famously noted ‘Write with The doors closed’. This got me thinking about The Doors themselves; not the boring B&Q kind but the psychedelic 70’s kind, fronted by 27 Club icon Jim Morrison, and why Stephen King and The Doors make a great combination. While reading it can be easy to be distracted […]Read More
Since her first major dramatic success (Colder Than Here, which premiered at the Soho Court Theatre in 2005), Laura Wade has gone from strength to strength in the world of theatre and film. If you aren’t already a fan of her introspective and dynamic work, here are half a dozen reasons why you should be… […]Read More
“The contents of this book defy description”, writes the play’s editor, Bernard Miles. Spike Milligan and John Antrobus’ absurdist comedy first hit the stage back in 1963, both bewildering and delighting its audience members. Yet it should not be treated merely as nonsense; Milligan and Antrobus’ madness conceals great method within. Maybe I’m deluded in […]Read More
Great Britain is known for its complex class system, convoluted social etiquette and confounding variance of accent and culture. Elizabeth Gaskell’s novel North and South sums this up almost perfectly – though admittedly from a mid-nineteenth century perspective. Certain things we believe to be true nowadays have indeed been so since the 1850s: living costs […]Read More
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