Philip Hensher

Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Exeter, Philip Hensher was among Granta 20 Best of Young British Novelists in 2003. The author of six novels, a collection of short stories and an opera libretto, he has won numerous prizes including the Somerset Maugham Award and the Stonewall Journalist of the Year. A regular presence in the British media, alongside his Wednesday column for The Independent, he writes for The Spectator and Mail on Sunday. His latest novel, The Northern Clemency, is published by Fourth Estate.

Philip Hensher: Putin, art and the 'sausage sword' debate

Vladimir Putin was paying a visit to one of the best-known of Russian painters, Ilya Glazunov, the other day. All was going well, until he ventured away from the usual exchanges of civility between artists and rulers, and suddenly, and quite rudely, remarked of a painting of a medieval knight: "That sword's too short. It's only good to cut sausage." Most artists, at this point, might have considered handing Mr Putin the paintbrush and telling him to have a go if he thought he could do any better. But Mr Glazunov humbly agreed to correct his mistake.

Recently by Philip Hensher

Philip Hensher: English should not just be a subject for girls

Monday, 8 June 2009

I have often sat at the front of an undergraduate class in English literature and observed that the class is mainly, and sometimes overwhelmingly, female. Nobody apart from me ever seems to think this is at all odd. English literature as a subject, rather than a thing, has for years, and perhaps since its academic founding, been regarded as a female subject. And yet English literature as a thing, rather than a subject, is overwhelmingly written by men, and before the 19th century almost exclusively so.

Philip Hensher: It's high time we had a new government

Monday, 11 May 2009

When Damian Green, the shadow Immigration minister, was apprehended by police and questioned about the leak of government documents, attention was focused on him. The constitutional outrage of the police entering the Palace of Westminster and trying to arrest an opposition spokesman for efficiently doing his job appeared the most important aspect of the case.

Philip Hensher: A Laureate's poems are all that matter

Monday, 4 May 2009

You get a few hundred bottles of sack, or dry sherry, and the unlimited scorn of most of your colleagues. You are required, by newspapers if not by royalty, to produce a lyric effusion whenever a royal prince is born, marries or dies, which is then ripped apart by journalists. And you have the ineffable boredom, I dare say, of attendance at all sorts of official events, and having to talk, endlessly, to people who have read nothing apart from government briefing papers for decades. Poet Laureate is not a tempting job.

Philip Hensher: Let's celebrate oysters and asparagus

Monday, 27 April 2009

A bit more than 20 years ago, I was in the market in Cambridge at the middle of June. We'd been gorging ourselves on local asparagus for the last few weeks and I headed to the vegetable stall. There was none to be seen, and I asked the stallholder if she would be getting some tomorrow.

Philip Hensher: What worked in Venezuela won't do so here

Monday, 20 April 2009

The Venezuelan system of music education known as El Sistema has been much written about, usually in greatly admiring terms. In the past three decades, a programme of music education has reached deep into the favelas, giving hundreds of thousands of children the opportunity to learn an instrument, and to study in the demanding disciplines of classical music. Hundreds of youth orchestras have spring up, and, it has been argued, the many hours of music teaching and education which Venezuelan youth go through get results in the shape of discipline and commitment to education.

Philip Hensher: Museums are being wrecked by piped music

Monday, 13 April 2009

At the Victoria and Albert Museum's new Baroque show, I was trying to concentrate on what might strike some people as an unnecessarily complicated object when, quite suddenly, the band struck up above my head.

Philip Hensher: What would we do without Dame Viv?

Monday, 6 April 2009

The developing depression in the global economy is having many disastrous effects. But surely one of the lesser ones is that the inhabitants of Moscow are no longer going to be able to buy the mini-crini, the ripped pirate-style jacket, the safety-pinned T-shirt or any other of Vivienne Westwood's creations.

Philip Hensher: Does anyone really understand the National Curriculum?

Friday, 3 April 2009

Teachers must live in dread of the man from the ministry making a visit

Philip Hensher: Wrestling with the outer limits of language

Monday, 30 March 2009

Language is interesting not just when it is exotic and static, but when it is in the process of development

Philip Hensher: Give us a nice day out and we're happy

Monday, 23 March 2009

'What a beautiful day," I said, looking out of the window of my partner's house in Geneva. Lake Geneva was gorgeous in the sunlight; beyond the rooftops, the immense jet of water was sparkling against the blue sky. The mountains beyond the city were brilliantly capped with snow. "Let's not moulder inside watching Battlestar Galactica. Let's have a nice day out."

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