An International edition for an International city

This edition includes writers born in Africa, Asia and South America as well as in Europe.

One person who has connected to USA and the Caribbean is art magazine editor and photographer Fanny Dubes Arbuthnott. She must be very proud of her photograph of James Baldwin and her involvement in the iconic poetry anthologies Hard Lines. There’s a feature about a soon to be released film titled Beijing Spring. One of the heroes, Qu Leilei is a regular visitor to Oxford and Ai Weiwei has a new installation at Blenheim Palace.

Most good novels have a strong sense of place. Julie Anderson delves into that topic. Her thrillers have distinct locations. Julie was a senior civil servant at the treasury and that experience not only gave her insight into the underbelly of Whitehall but to literally a hidden world under our feet. If any readers go to London, you may like to explore her unusual walk.

I hope my novels have a similar sense of place. Half of Sculpting the Elephant is set in Jericho. Most visitors to Oxford head for the dreaming spires and miss hidden gems like this former working class district that narrowly escaped being bulldozed to be replaced by high rise. Some of you visited the oxib stand at the popular and fun Jericho Book Fair in Mount Place by the canal…