School of hard knocks: the dark underside to boarding school books
Violence, cruelty and sexual confusion are as much a part of boarding school literature as japes and cricket. Alex Renton surveys a troubled genre from Kipling to Rowling“Michael was ordered to take...
View ArticleBond and Smiley should be retired: it's time for working-class spy fiction
Since the genre’s inception, its heroes have usually been privileged types. Less well-connected heroes would make better novels and wouldn’t go amiss in real lifeFrom the moment Erskine Childers...
View ArticleTheresa May slithers through the political jungle
Chris Riddell on the Conservative leader’s plea to the electorateContinue reading...
View ArticleUsed and abused by Boris Johnson – what did Kipling do to deserve that? |...
It was crass of the foreign secretary to declaim Mandalay while in Myanmar. But it was no less than we’ve come to expect from himCoincidences don’t get queasier. The Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas,...
View ArticleDeadliest 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 ArticleDeadliest 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...
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