Essays / Reviews

Several of Alan's essays and articles have appeared in the excellent Fortnightly Review: you can find them here.

Alan is working on a rigorous but playful exploration of the origin of English words called Obstupefaction Etc.  Sections from this book are being published in The Reader and Paraxis, and others are free to download here on the website.

Alan Wall's essays and reviews have appeared in The Spectator, The Guardian, Literary Review, Agenda, Jewish Quarterly, The Times, The Times Higher Educational Supplement, Poetry London, The Art Newspaper, PN Review and English.

Myth, Metaphor and Science is a collection of essays exploring the way language is used in fiction, poetry and science.  The book stemmed from work undertaken on an AHRC/Arts Council funded fellowship, working with the particle physicist Dr Goronwy Tudor Jones at Birmingham University.  The essays are also available on the Royal Literary Fund site.

Other subjects Alan has tackled include Wittgenstein, Freud, Walter Benjamin, Paul Celan,Chesterton, Rembrandt, Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes and art into fiction.  His essay on Grub Street appeared in the City of Disappearances anthology edited by Iain Sinclair.

You can read Alan's provocative piece A Defence of the Book on the excellent Ready Steady Book site.

The Uses of Paranoia, Alan's exploration of paranoid fiction - which considers the work of Pynchon, Le CarrĂ©, John Gardner, DeLillo, TS Eliot, Orwell, Shakespeare, Bob Dylan - can be found on the International Literary Quarterly Site.

Alan's reviews of work by Neil Jordan, Louise Welsh and Shirley Hazzard can be found in the books segment of The Guardian site.

Shakespearian Uncertainties is online at Temporel.