Read published author, Elisa’s engaging piece on why the deeply-philosophical, yet compelling writer, Iris Murdoch, deserves a new audience: “I discovered Iris Murdoch in my first year at Cambridge, where I was studying English at Pembroke College…this was 1999 and my best friend had just finished The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch and passed it to me as I waved my goodbye before leaving.”

“While many authors make their name with a particular style – an emotional, first-person narrative or a detached, poetic musing on life – Smith’s strength lies in her ability to straddle different genres, hopping and jumping to inhabit different voices. Her two most recent works, Feel Free and Grand Union are very different. Feel Free is an essay collection, about topics from Justin Bieber to Brexit and climate change, while Grand Union is a collection of short stories. Yet, I would say they are my two favourite works by her.”