The deferent and visibly fragile academic with a high, mousy voice makes a lousy feminist role model
By Lionel Shriver
Why has any expression of measured concern about the trans phenomenon become so impossible?
By Lionel Shriver
The noble defence of an infinitely multiplying list of ‘marginalised groups’ is a predatory movement
By Lionel Shriver
The movement insists that what we are is more important than who we are
By Lionel Shriver
The most sorry person this week? American poet Anders Carlson-Wee.
By Lionel Shriver
Dear 2016 WriteNow mentees, Thanks so much for your open letter to me. It seems only good manners for me to write back. You’re rightly proud of having been admitted to a challenging programme at Penguin Random House that mentors gifted young minority authors and helps to cultivate their talents. My own publisher, HarperCollins, runs […]
By Lionel Shriver
I’d been suffering under the misguided illusion that the purpose of mainstream publishers like Penguin Random House was to sell and promote fine writing. A colleague’s forwarded email has set me straight. Sent to a literary agent, presumably this letter was also fired off to the agents of the entire Penguin Random House stable. The […]
By Lionel Shriver
Twitter outrage about a few sectarian mugs has left Lionel Shriver glad to be in her fantasy world offline
By Lionel Shriver
When, on a test of general knowledge, the highly educated score far worse than chimpanzees, university degrees may be overrated (definitely). But something more interesting may also be going on. According to the newly released Factfulness by Hans Rosling, we would-be smart people would improve our results on multiple-choice questions about the current state of […]
By Lionel Shriver
These days throwing insults often just means ‘I disagree with you’
By Lionel Shriver
Last week, the New York Times ran a very un-New-York-Times-y article, ‘Resentment Grows Over Who Gets Health Care Aid’. It contrasts two women in New Hampshire. Married with one child at 30, last year Gwen Hurd paid more than $11,000 for her family’s health insurance, purchased through the Affordable Care Act exchange. They had to […]
By Lionel Shriver
Sometimes a picture — the big picture — is worth more than a thousand words. Consider this Art vs Artist, Part II. As #MeToo rolls inexorably on, the movement has scored another casualty, the wheelchair-bound, 77-year-old Chuck Close, whose reputation as a photo-realist had until last month been as immense as his paintings. Two women […]
By Lionel Shriver
We love it when things fall apart. It’s an excuse to go shopping
By Lionel Shriver
So much of what we carefully separate just ends up wasting energy
By Lionel Shriver
