Deadliest mass shooting in modern US history – Wounded Knee, not Las Vegas |...
1890 massacre in South Dakota | Alcohol as a social drug | Lib Dem leafleting | A better Kipling quote for Boris Johnson | Tom Petty and the Traveling Wilburys | Bathwater for baby and everyone elseI...
View ArticleBoris Johnson was unwise to quote Kipling. But he wasn’t praising empire |...
The foreign secretary was caught on camera in Myanmar being a klutz again. But despite the furore, the poem Mandalay wasn’t an argument for colonialismDuring the foreign secretary’s visit to Myanmar...
View ArticleRudyard Kipling’s writing enjoyed by Indians | Brief letters
Rudyard Kipling | Contributor Namy | Taking it easy | Bathroom matters | Lambs’ livesI was delighted that Ian Jack made a visit to Rudyard Kipling’s home, Bateman’s, in light of Boris Johnson’s recent...
View ArticleHow Kipling helped quell an Indian mutiny in first world war trenches
British intelligence enlisted Jungle Book author to counter German propaganda by rewriting soldiers’ letters homeHe was one of Britain’s most celebrated writers of the 20th century, the Nobel...
View ArticleTop 10 talking animals in books
From Lewis Carroll’s Cheshire Cat to Franz Kafka’s ‘Ungeziefer’, linguistically gifted beasts have made for some of the most luminous characters in fictionAnimal characters in works of fiction have...
View ArticleNeil Gaiman on Rudyard Kipling's The Gardener – short story podcast
Neil Gaiman introduces Rudyard Kipling’s The Gardener, a melancholy tale from 1925, as part of our seasonal series of short stories selected by leading novelists. Then, the story is read for you by an...
View ArticleBook clinic: recommended literary page-turners
This week, our expert suggests a selection of books to rekindle the joy of reading in even the most battle-hardened litterateurQ: Having completed my MA in creative writing, I can’t read with pleasure...
View ArticleManchester University students paint over Rudyard Kipling mural
Students replace poem If by ‘well-known racist’ with Maya Angelou’s Still I RiseStudents at the University of Manchester have painted over a mural of a poem by Rudyard Kipling, arguing that the writer...
View ArticleWe can’t paint over our racist past | Letters
Manchester university students defacing a Kipling poem draws mixed responses from readersI read the article about how at the University of Manchester the students painted over the Kipling mural and...
View ArticleEven Rudyard Kipling felt iffy about If | Letters
Thoughts from John Anzani, Richard Maidment and Mike Wright following the decision to erase Rudyard Kipling’s poem, If, from a display at the University of ManchesterI feel that some correspondents are...
View ArticleFair trade cocaine wouldn’t delight dealers | Brief letters
Middle-class cocaine use | Black photographers in Vogue | Maya Angelou and Rudyard Kipling | The Silk Roads | Whale-dolphin hybridAll cocaine use, regardless of class – in fact all illicit drug use,...
View ArticleOn the jungle trail: revisiting Kipling's children's classic
Katherine Rundell was thrilled by the idea of plunging back into the world of Mowgli, Bagheera and Mother Wolf ... but could she create a prequel to The Jungle Book without killing the magic?There are...
View ArticleUnseen tales reveal the young Rudyard Kipling honing his skills
The Jungle Book author’s vivid early stories from India are being published, many for the first timeHis stories have delighted generations of children and adults, while also being criticised for...
View ArticleThe Wall by John Lanchester review – ‘The Others are coming’
From Brexit to migration, this masterly climate change dystopia explores contemporary fears with a blend of realism and metaphor“It’s cold on the Wall.” What kind of story might be signalled by such an...
View ArticleThe Jungle Book review – riotous show gets into the swing of Kipling
Derby theatreThe tales of Mowgli, Baloo and Bagheera are inventively staged with integrated sign language and a community castAccessibility is too often treated as an afterthought in theatre. Director...
View Article'We are guests on Earth': Akram Khan to stage The Jungle Book as climate...
Choreographer’s new version, to be performed at Leicester’s Curve in 2022, reinvents Kipling’s Mowgli as a climate refugeeAt the age of 10, Akram Khan played Mowgli in an Indian dance version of The...
View ArticleHow the Just So Stories were Made by John Batchelor review – an origin story...
A scrupulous account of the brilliance and family tragedy that lies behind Kipling’s joyful collection of animal stories Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories are often described, O Best Beloved, as...
View ArticleEnglish Heritage recognises Blyton and Kipling’s racism – but blue plaques to...
Blue plaques left unchanged, but charity website details Blyton’s ‘old-fashioned xenophobia’ and Kipling’s ‘imperialist sentiments’English Heritage has acknowledged the “racism, xenophobia and lack of...
View ArticleMowgli, Bagheera, Baloo: Rudyard Kipling’s own sketches of the Jungle Book...
Until recently, drawings made to help shape the characters could only be seen in the British Library. Now they will feature in a new editionEvocative drawings that Rudyard Kipling created for The...
View ArticleAlan Bennett dedicates Kipling poem A Dead Statesman to Boris Johnson
The playwright’s annual diary excerpt criticises the prime minister and Donald Trump and recalls an encounter with Philip RothAlan Bennett’s yearly diary excerpt sees the playwright dedicating Rudyard...
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