The website of writer and poet Daniel Bennett
'"Really, Tichy. Don't be so demonic. Ours is simply a world in which more than twenty billion people live. Did you read today's Herald? The government of Pakistan claims that in this year's famine only 970,000 perished, while the opposition gives a figure of six million. In such a world where are you going to … Continue reading The Last Pheasant
'Lee Harwood, the noted Anglo-American poet, has begun to publish compositions written in a language of his own invention. Linguists who have examined these 'neologisms' substantiate Harwood's claim that his language is not, in essence, derived from any other language, oral or written. Harwood is attempting to establish a utopian community on the outskirts of … Continue reading ‘A Suitable Culture’
'The writer's task is to invent reality.' J.G. Ballard. On a recent trip to Heathrow, I travelled along the Westway. It's been a few years since I headed out on that road, not since a friend of mine passed his driving test and we made a specific trip out west with Low by David Bowie … Continue reading Terminal Realism: Kathy Acker and William S. Burroughs, J.G. Ballard and Zadie Smith
'I know the island well: I am not afraid of an army if it tries to find me at night.' Island fiction, that specialised genre, exploits the novel's innate artificiality. The relationship between setting and structure become so pronounced as to be almost indivisible. According to Raymond Chandler, any writer short of ideas about what … Continue reading The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares
'Don't ask; relax.' Every week I take a train journey of about two hours. Once, I would take this journey twice each day, and although it eventually became too large a bite out of my life, for a while I was able to lose myself in the time. I'd write on a small laptop— a … Continue reading Mockingbird by Walter Tevis
Absence Club 