Moniza Alvi is Head of English at a comprehensive school in South London.
On that dreamy late afternoon the bushes alive with cabbage whites Tom led me down the tangled pathway between the mysteries of back gardens and the top of the railway bank where we were not supposed to play.
At last he pointed out a clearing a sandy dip in the bank and there it lay a long fat turd. It was Neil, Tom said. Neil did it. Other children had arrived so we all gathered...
Every handful of John Updike’s silver has its square coin, its bad penny, its fake. This exquisitely careful writer tends to relax into flamboyance: it is the verbal equivalent of...
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