16 January 2023
The National Book Awards are the Oscars of the publishing industry, although nobody who attended the ceremony on November 16 at Cipriani Wall Street would likely confuse the two. Still, it wasn't without its glamour and drama. That night, Padma Lakshmi, best-selling author and former wife of Salman Rushdie - who only a few months before had been nearly murdered for his writing - was the host. Read more
On literary snobbery
‘I always quote Kurt Vonnegut. He said in the early part of his career he was dismissed as a science fiction writer and that critics tend to put genre books, including sci-fi, in the bottom drawer of their desk... It's true. I get the New York Times every Sunday. In 37 novels, I've never had a stand-alone review. I'm always in the crime round-up. Read more