Times Stephen Spender Translation Prize for Brian Holton Many congratulations to Scottish PEN member Brian Holton whose translation of Du Fu’s poem has been commended in the 2012 Times Stephen Spender Prize for poetry in translation. As far as we know it is the first time a major UK translation prize has given an award […]

Carl von Linné – or Linnaeus as the world outside Sweden remembers him – was what we would now call a “control-freak”. And like all control-freaks, he was often frustrated by the unwillingness of people, animals and the natural world in general to do as they were told. Even as a boy, he would order […]