Maya Jaggi
latest news & developmentsMinding the gap — or not
Barbara Kingsolver’s long-awaited new novel recalls a dangerous era for artists, writes Maya Jaggi.
Everyman’s an alien
Maya Jaggi detects echoes of 9/11 in a story about Chinese totalitarianism.
Cairo calling
Alaa Al Aswany, author of <i>The Yacoubian Building</i>, has a new novel,<i> Chicago</i>. He speaks to Maya Jaggi.
Arabic writers still fighting for freedom of expression
Maya Jaggi reports from the Cairo book fair on the struggle for freedom of expression.
When East is West
Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk has faced criminal charges and even death threats in his native Turkey, yet he refuses to be disillusioned.
Free spirit
Ben Okri has been described as a ‘literary visionary’ and ‘irritatingly pseudomystical’. His latest novel, <i>Starbook</i>, continues his quest to capture Africa, writes Maya…
The voice of conscience
When Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka visited the Hay Cartagena festival in Colombia earlier this year, in a walled Spanish colonial town on the Caribbean coast, children in the…
Fela’s rising son
It took years for Femi Kuti to win over fans of his father, the Afrobeat legend Fela, writes Maya Jaggi.
Revered and yet he remains obscure in the West
Chinua Achebe is revered across continents as a founder of the modern African novel in English, reports Maya Jaggi in London.
Isle of writers
As Athenians sweated to finish the Olympic stadiums, an Orthodox priest on the island of Paros, about three hours away, was intoning over a modest dwelling that may yet crown…
Stance of pride
The first black woman to win a Nobel Prize for Literature, Toni Morrison’s new novel, <i>Love</i>, explores the changes wrought by the American civil-rights movement and…
Poet on the front line
A cultural icon for black artists since the 1970s, Linton Kwesi Johnson is known as a performer and recording artist as much as a writer, for poetry that blends the bass and…
Great divides
Review</b>: <i>The Pickup</i> by Nadine Gordimer (David Philip).
Conscience of a nation
Maya Jaggi meets Noam Chomsky, the founding father of linguistic philosophy and tireless scourge of American imperialism.