sub-editor for the Guardian. His work on immigration issues has earned him widespread recognition: his article “London: The World in One City” won the Amnesty International UK Media Award (2005) and the Race in the Media Award (2006). His work has appeared in Prospect, The Observer, The New Statesman, The London Review of Books and The Literary Review.Benedictus’s debut novel The Afterparty was long-listed for the 2011 Desmond Elliott Prize. His second novel is Consent (in the UK and Commonwealth, and Read Me in the US and elsewhere).
One of the author's ten top evil narrators, as shared at the Guardian:
Humbert Humbert in Lolita by Vladimir NabokovRead about another entry on the list.
Many people may feel instinctively that Humbert does something worse than killing, which is child sexual abuse, regular and premeditated. Perhaps worse still is the way he talks about it. Humbert implores our sympathy not for Lolita, whom he abuses, but for himself having to live with the desire. That erotic and romantic ache, in Nabokov’s beautiful style, is what I still remember. It takes you to the point where you empathise with this man even when he drugs and rapes a 12-year-old girl.
Lolita appears on Juno Dawson's best banned books list, Jo Nesbø's six favorite books list, Emily Temple's list of ten essential road trip books that aren’t On the Road, Olivia Sudjic's list of eight favorite books about love and obsession, Jeff Somers's list of five best worst couples in literature, Brian Boyd's ten best list of Vladimir Nabokov books, Billy Collins' six favorite books list, Charlotte Runcie's list of the ten best bad mothers in literature, Kathryn Williams's list of fifteen notable works on lust, Boris Kachka's six favorite books list, Fiona Maazel's list of the ten worst fathers in books, Jennifer Gilmore's list of the ten worst mothers in books, Steven Amsterdam's list of five top books that have anxiety at their heart, John Banville's five best list of books on early love and infatuation, Kathryn Harrison's list of favorite books with parentless protagonists, Emily Temple's list of ten of the greatest kisses in literature, John Mullan's list of ten of the best lakes in literature, Dan Vyleta's top ten list of books in second languages, Rowan Somerville's top ten list of books of good sex in fiction, Henry Sutton's top ten list of unreliable narrators, Adam Leith Gollner's top ten list of fruit scenes in literature, Laura Hird's literary top ten list, Monica Ali's ten favorite books list, Laura Lippman's 5 most important books list, Mohsin Hamid's 10 favorite books list, and Dani Shapiro's 10 favorite books list. It is Lena Dunham's favorite book.
--Marshal Zeringue
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