I’m going back to China for the first time in a decade. I wonder if anything has changed?

Nick Holdstock is Selected for the Nanjing Residency

I wrote about Mathias Enard’s new novel for The TLS.

I wrote about Tahir Hamut Izgil’s memoir for the TLS.

https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/waiting-to-be-arrested-at-night-tahir-hamut-izgil-book-review-nick-holdstock/

I wrote about Tom Parfitt’s North Caucasus travel book for Literary Review.

I wrote about Mohamed Choukri’s short stories for The TLS.

https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/tales-of-tangier-mohamed-choukri-book-review-nick-holdstock/

I wrote about my apparently aimless wandering for the Royal Literary Fund.

Journeys Without Maps

I wrote about Ibrahim’s novel for The TLS.

I wrote about Wang Xiaobo’s novel for The TLS.

The paperback of my second novel is now at liberty.

I wrote about The Fawn for the TLS.

I wrote about the new Bernhard collection for the TLS.

I have a new story in Exacting Clam. 

Looking forward to reading in Sweden next week at the English Bookshop, at both its Stockholm and Uppsala branches, on the 18th and 20th respectively. I have good memories of doing an event there for The Casualties all the way back in… 2017.

Thanks to Ali Braidwood for a stimulating and enjoyable conversation about Quarantine that you can listen to here.

You can read the start of Quarantine here.

You can hear me on the BBC Radio Scotland Afternoon Show talking about Quarantine.

Segment starts at 1.10.21.

One epigraph for a novel is plenty – and perhaps already too much – but in an attempt to have it both ways, here are some of the big-eyed darlings I had to drown for the new book. First is a quote from Walter Benjamin’s essay on Proust.

From Lispector’s Near to the Wild Heart (tr. Alison Entrekin)

And Goethe’s poem ‘Above the mountaintops’

I wrote about staring out the window for the Royal Literary Fund.

I’ll be launching my new novel Quarantine at Golden Hare Books in Edinburgh on May 5th. Tickets available here.

I reviewed Di Benedetto’s reissued novel for the TLS.

I have a new story at Lunate called ‘Open’.

I picked 3 short fictions for Banshee magazine, all of them challenging, interesting pieces. Lots of other good picks on the list to investigate.

I wrote about Ai Wei Wei’s memoir for Literary Review. Inexplicably, the review makes no mention of this incident:

My second novel will be out from Swift Press next year – you can pre-order here.

I have a story in the new issue of Banshee about the joys of tenement living. You can preorder here.