CREATIVE & CRITICAL

First published, 30th December 2013For over ten years Cairo has succeeded in drawing me back. These days I visit from Riyadh in the hope that I might reaffirm that I haven’t died and taken a squat in some weird supernatural pre-sin assessment waiting room. Not yet. I’m going to start by asserting that Cairo is just…

First published, 31st January 2014In January not one single skinny fly landed on my web. Two flies landed yesterday (2nd February).I couldn’t settle last night after flying in from London to Riyadh. I’ve been thinking of writing a novel about Saudi for ten years. Each year I edge a little closer to what it should…

First published, 4th March 2014History is a novel without a future. You know I rather despise the cheap tricks used in genre fiction to hook the reader, suspend the suspense, hang the cliff, as if all that matters is what comes next…I remember first reading Slaughterhouse-5. What hit me most was the way Vonnegut played with time;…