Author: GRB

The book sets out, in a very personal way, to honour the individuals who dared to reimagine how humans might care for one another. Benoît also recounts his own related experiences and describes the huge influence of his mother, a dedicated health worker, with the book featuring several moving ‘epistles’ written directly to her.

We can’t wait to hear from Benoît and we expect tickets to go swiftly for this event, so don’t wait too long before booking!

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‘Divergent and elaborate in the pursuit of its enthusiasms, balancing the personal and the intellectual, The Death of the Clinic is a book of hope and affirmation as well as of pain and grief.’ – Gavin Francis, author of The Unfragile Mind

‘Intimate and erudite, breathtaking in its historical analysis and philosophical range, The Death of the Clinic illuminates bold experiments in non-hierarchical medicine, offering expansive possibilities for solidarity, self-determination and communal care.’ – Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, author of Terry Dactyl

‘The Death of the Clinic is an inspiring, essential book.’ – Chris Kraus, author of The Four Spent the Day Together

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Benoît Loiseau is a Belgian-born, Franco-British writer, critic and scholar based in Brooklyn and Paris. A founding editor of queer anthology The BitterSweet Review, he has written for ArtReview, frieze, The Guardian, The New York Times and The White Review. He read philosophy at the École Normale Supérieure (PSL) and is currently a postdoctoral fellow in French and Comparative Literature at New York University and Paris 8 University.

Claire Carroll is a writer, editor and academic researcher whose writing has been broadcast on BBC Radio 4, and published in journals and anthologies including The Stinging Fly, The London Magazine, Prototype and Best of British Short Stories. Her debut collection of short stories, The Unreliable Nature Writer, was released in 2024 with Scratch Books. Her latest publication, TREATMENT, a book-length poem co-authored with Andrew Hykel Mears, was released in September 2026 with Dialect Press. She is currently editor of short fiction for Ambient Receiver Journal.

Benoît Loiseau Photo credit: Gioncarlo Valentine

We are thrilled to say that we will be joined by artist, curator and writer, Paul Coldwell next month, who will be discussing his fascinating new book, Ink Paper Chisel Grain: A Remarkable History of Woodcuts.

Paul has studied and worked with woodcuts for several decades, so brings an enormous wealth of knowledge and insight to this riveting subject.

Here’s more on the book from its publisher – Penguin imprint, Michael Joseph:

Ink Paper Chisel Grain is a book about why the woodcut matters and why its power to shock, thrill and inspire has never diminished. From third-century China through to the present day, celebrated printmaker Paul Coldwell explores how we have used the medium to visualise ideas, capture key moments in history and help shape the society around us, telling the story of the art form itself in all its historical and intellectual significance.

Beautifully illustrated throughout, Ink Paper Chisel Grain is an ode to craft and care, conveying the marvel and excitement of seeing a woodcut for the first time – and what makes these encounters so unforgettable.

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‘A fascinating account of the hidden history of the humble woodcut.’ Sunday Times

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Paul Coldwell is an artist, curator, researcher and writer who has worked with and studied woodcuts for more than fifty years. His work has been exhibited in numerous public collections, including the Tate, the V&A, the British Museum, the Musee d’art et d’histoire (Geneva) and MoMA (New York), and since 2001 he has been a Professor in Fine Art Printmaking at the University of the Arts London. He has been a regular contributor to publications including Art in Print, Printmaking Today and Print Quarterly, and he is the author of several books, including Printmaking: A Contemporary Perspective.

This is the time of year that has us scratching our heads and staring off into the middle distance as we try to work out how to shoehorn in yet more stacks of new books that we blithley ordered back in the summer when we didn’t have to think about where they would actually go. We tessellate and retessellate, and give thanks that at least they are roughly all the same shape.

A firm favourite in the shop, and a master of surreal humour, wit and invention, Juan Pablo Villalobos is joining us in October to discuss his superb novel, The Past Pursues Us Like Detectives, Debt Collectors, Thieves. The Mexican author will be in conversation with the poet, translator and academic, Rebecca Kosick.

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‘A rambunctious picaresque of contemporary Mexican life, rendered into English by [Daniel] Hahn with appropriate energy.’ Kit Maude, Times Literary Supplement

‘Juan Pablo Villalobos … demonstrates his classic wit and penchant for the absurd, blurring the lines of genre and protagonist with its author.’ Andrés Ordorica, The Skinny

‘The Past Pursues Us is a masterful example of how to push autobiography to the extremes of fiction, allowing the imagination to explore themes rooted in the author’s life. Themes that, when taken to their limits, reveal a sharp glimpse of an inexorable truth.’ Nicolás Giacobone, screenwriter of Birdman

‘Vividly drawn, darkly amusing and never dull.’ Chris Allnutt, Financial Times

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Juan Pablo Villalobos was born in Mexico in 1973. He’s the author of the novels Down the Rabbit Hole (shortlisted for The Guardian First Book Award), Quesadillas, I’ll Sell You a Dog, I Won’t Expect Anyone to Believe Me and The Invasion of the Spirit People, and of the non-fiction book The Other Side: Stories of Central American Teen Who Dream of Crossing the Border. His books have been translated into more than 15 languages. Down the Rabbit Hole and I Won’t Expect Anyone to Believe Me were adapted for film and premiered on Netflix. He lives in Barcelona, where he teaches writing.

Rebecca Kosick is a poet, translator, and Associate Professor of Comparative Poetry and Poetics at the University of Bristol, where she also codirects the Bristol Poetry Institute. She has published four books, most recently Dispatches from the Avant-Garage: The Alternative Press.

it’s just two weeks until we have the honour of hosting the great Spanish author and translator, Munir Hachemi. Munir will be discussing his wonderful novel, The Mulai, in conversation with the author, poet and creative writing teacher, Constantine Blintzios.

The novel’s publisher, one of our absolute favourite indie presses, Fitzcarraldo Editions, consider The Mulai to be their first science fiction publication which is adding to our excitement very much! The book, translated from Spanish by Julia Sanches, is many things: a deep examination of the fragility of civilisations, the ever evolving essence of language, the lure of religion, and much more besides.

The Mulai is the work of an extremely fertile and fascinating mind; just the kind of writer from whom we love to hear! There are a few tickets left for what will undoubtedly be a great evening.

An archaeologist travels to a distant planet to spend time among a mysterious community, a people who live in temperature-controlled domes, worship a deity called Dog, and repeat an elliptical phrase from which they draw their name: mulai, the tree comes. The descendants of a long-forgotten space mission, the Mulai have abandoned the social norms that once bound them to Earth. Over centuries of isolation, their language has become more about change than stability, and the ways they eat, write, reproduce, bury their dead and understand gender have all transformed into something almost unrecognizable.

Drawing on Borges, Le Guin and Calvino, The Mulai is a mind-bending work of metafiction whose interlocking puzzles resound with Munir Hachemi’s singularly playful and eclectic style.

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‘Wild, insightful and impressive.’ — Publishers Weekly

‘A beguiling tale of Otherness that is not only a translation from another language but another planet, a story told so well that every familiar word feels as new as an alien horizon.’ — Anton Hur, author of Toward Eternity

‘If Borges wrote hard science fiction, it might well look like this … You can almost feel the author grinning at you as you read, and I daresay you’ll end up grinning back by the end.’ — Drew Broussard, LitHub

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Munir Hachemi’s career as a writer began with them selling their stories in the form of fanzines in the bars of the Lavapiés neighbourhood of Madrid. They are the author of Living Things and The Mulai, and are also a translator from Chinese and English. In 2021, they appeared on Granta’s Best of Young Spanish-Language Novelists list.

Constantine Blintzios is a writer, translator and academic whose debut novel, The Smoke is Me, Burning was published in 2022. He has had poetry, short stories and reviews published in journals such as Visual Verse, Ash magazine, Paris Lit-Up, the Oxonian Review and the Literary Review.

Photo of Munir Hachemi credit: Carlos Gil