As part of our music-themed month on the blog, we’ve been asking our authors to talk us through four songs that have in some way shaped their writing. Like his novels, David Flusfeder’s choices span from the 13th Century to the 21st.
We’ve been clearing out our offices and archiving the most interesting of items in preparation for our move to London Bridge in January. Over the next month or so we’ll be sharing anything of GREAT interest that we find with you. To start with, we flick through a satisfyingly large magazine we published to celebrate our 21st…
Back in 2005, the word ‘kindle’ was principally a verb, the word ‘Amazon’ was generally synonymous with a rainforest, and Hilary Mantel’s mantelpiece was conspicuously lacking in Booker Prizes. Here at 4th Estate, we were busy publishing future classics like Mantel’s Beyond Black, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus, Tash Aw’s The Harmony Silk Factory and Nigel Slater’s The Kitchen Diaries. Read more…
The impetus to write John the Pupil hit me when I was sitting in the British Library reading about the medieval Franciscan and magus Roger Bacon, who is often described as the first ‘modern’ scientist. I was researching writing something about bomb-making when a byway took me into a biography of Bacon, who had rediscovered gunpowder. The book contained the following footnote: ‘In 1267, Bacon sent his pupil John to Italy with two companions to deliver his book, the Opus Majus, to the Pope.’ Read more…
‘As part of the research to write John the Pupil, after I’d finished my months in the library immersed in the history, theology, politics, chronicles and hagiographies of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, I travelled along the Via Francigena. Read more…
