Nicholas Shakespeare

How World War One came to Broken Hill

Alison had never liked her grandmother, who lived alone in a big overheated apartment in Zurich, and so when Helen went into hospital after a mild stroke and, rather than consent to enter a nursing home, decided on a “self-determined death” with the …

Freycinet, Tasmania

James Boyce’s ‘Van Diemen’s Land’

In early July my beautiful 17-year-old niece arrived from Winnipeg, Canada, on her first visit to London. I’d assured Sarah’s parents I would look after her in the city that Londoners fondly call “the big smoke”. In Winnipeg, as in the Kundera …

W. made his slow way up the steps into Am Sandwerder and accustomed his eyes to the light, uncertain whether the streaks in the sky signified dawn or dusk. Never could he recall feeling so depleted. He had lost count of the hours he’d spent in the basement …

Dobbing on Dr Raad