Leo Robson
New Statesman
United Kingdom
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Past articles by Leo:
Jonathan Bate: "To me, Shakespeare is the great enabler"
How the acclaimed critic made his journey to popular writing, finds solace in Shakespeare, and took revenge on Cambridge. → Read More
“Our sense of who we are is constantly shifting”: novelist Katie Kitamura on Agatha Christie and being a reluctant critic
The Japanese-American author of Intimacies and A Separation is a strong believer in the malleability of self. → Read More
Reviewed in short: New books by Michael Brooks, Parag Khanna, John Callow and David Hare
The Art of More by Michael Brooks, Move by Parag Khanna, The Last Witches of England by John Callow and We Travelled by David Hare → Read More
Reviewed in Short: New books by Helen Carr and Suzannah Lipscomb, Kai-Fu Lee and Chen Qiufan, James Dyson and Sarah Hall
What is History, Now? by Carr and Lipscomb, AI 2041 by Lee and Qiufan, Invention by Dyson and Burntcoat by Hall. → Read More
Reviewed in short: New books by Mary Hollingsworth, Jessica Nordell, Michaela Coel and Michael Bracewell
Conclave 1559 by Mary Hollingsworth, The End of Bias by Jessica Nordell, Misfits by Michaela Coel and Souvenir by Michael Bracewell. → Read More
Christopher Ricks: “Criticism is being good at noticing things”
Sir Christopher Ricks has been described (by WH Auden) as “the kind of critic every poet dreams of finding” and by a pseudonymous former student as “the kind of professor you would have if you went to Hogwarts”. Born in Kent in 1933, he studied English at Oxford, and has held positions at Oxford, Bristol, Cambridge and, since 1986, Boston University. His many books include → Read More
Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment refashioned the idea of what a novel could be
By the 1860s Dostoevsky had been orphaned, imprisoned, conscripted and widowed. Lumbered with debts and immersed in the nihilism of St Petersburg, he set about developing the “psychological account of a crime”. → Read More
Mank and the long, troubled history of Hollywood and politics
David Fincher’s film provides a surprisingly thorough, if largely fictionalised, portrait of Hollywood in its early years as a political arena. → Read More
The most anticipated fiction of 2021
The literary highlights of the year ahead, from family sagas to historical fiction. → Read More
Why Tsitsi Dangarembga is one of the most remarkable authors the Booker Prize has ever celebrated
It may be the third volume in Dangarembga’s trilogy, but the Booker-shortlisted This Mournable Body is a sequel that doesn’t rely on its predecessors. → Read More
M John Harrison: “A number of novels don’t sit well in their genre of origin”
The English novelist on the power of innovative fiction, the “sad but luminous muddle” of being alive, and his Goldsmiths-shortlisted work The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again. → Read More
Don DeLillo’s echo chamber
How the American novelist ceased to find meaning in the world's white noise. → Read More
Why Gatsby was not so great
With his millionaire playboy, F Scott Fitzgerald inadvertently created a cult. But in the age of Trump, it’s clear Gatsby was always the book’s true villain. → Read More
Booker Prize nominee Gabriel Krauze: “I always had this instinct for wildness”
The debut novelist on his criminal past, generational trauma, and how falling in love changed him. → Read More
Infected by ideas
For writers from Daniel Defoe to Susan Sontag, plagues offer a window on to a rapidly changing world. → Read More
John Carey: The last public critic
A distinguished Oxford academic and newspaper critic, Carey has been a cultural influencer for 50 years. He is a high-establishment insider – and yet has never forgotten the social slights he experienced as a young man. → Read More
Martin MacInnes’s Gathering Evidence explores what it means to be human
MacInnes’s intriguing second novel deserves to cement his reputation as a bold and curious writer. → Read More
Anne Enright’s Actress: a plodding, clichéd story
Enright’s new novel about the daughter of an actress finds itself in a biographical straitjacket. → Read More
Philip Hensher’s A Small Revolution in Germany: loping and loquacious
In Hensher’s latest, wide-ranging novel, discipline has disappeared and vice reigns. → Read More
JM Coetzee’s The Death of Jesus: a fitting conclusion to a great trilogy
Coetzee’s trilogy of deadpan, present tense, fable-like fantasies, culminates in his extraordinary new novel The Death of Jesus. → Read More