Poem of the week: Breadcrumbs for the Sparrows by Paul Bailey
Straightforward and subtle, these short poems confront grief and loss with deep feeling, wit and flinty concision
April 2022
Carol Rumens's poem of the week
Poem of the week: Nocturnal by Paul Bailey
Written for a former lover who quietly chose to die, this work’s uncluttered eloquence offers pure refreshment
June 2020
Carol Rumens's poem of the week
Poem of the week: Poem by Paul Bailey
A simply spoken meditation on the presence of death throughout a life is told with unpretentious wit
January 2020
Letter: Hazel Vincent Wallace obituary
Paul Bailey writes: My first professional appearance as an actor was at the age of 15, in the winter of 1952-53, when I played Baby Bear and Gnome in a rather grisly children’s Christmas entertainment called Buckie’s Bears
March 2019
Back pages
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou – archive, 1 April 1984
Paul Bailey on the inspirational autobiography of a woman who survived rape and racism in the American south
October 2017
From the Guardian archive
Writing Cynthia Payne's biography – archive, 1982
12 October 1982 How Paul Bailey came to meet Streatham’s most famous madam
September 2017
Letter: Shouts of ‘Rubbish!’ greeted Ann Jellicoe’s The Sport of My Mad Mother
Paul Bailey writes: ‘Ann was exhilarated. “It’s like the first performance of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring,” she said. “You can’t ask better than that”’
September 2015
Rachel Cooke's shelf life
The mothers and fathers of all memoir writers
In the second of Rachel Cooke’s new column, she reflects on her favourite stories of fraught filial relationships
May 2014
The Prince's Boy by Paul Bailey review – a big story in a small book
Proust looms large over this short but wide-reaching novel about love, sex, loss and grief in interwar Paris, writes Lindesay Irvine
April 2014
Paul Bailey on Sue Townsend: 'She believed in good manners and kindness'
In 1988, Alan Bennett, Craig Raine, Christopher Hope, Timothy Mo, Sue Townsend and I were treated to lunch at the Georgian State restaurant in Moscow by the Great Britain-USSR society
May 2013
CP Cavafy: The Complete Poems – review
The Greek observer of human folly refuses to be entombed by his latest translator's academic thoroughness, writes Paul Bailey
July 2012
Author, author
Paul Bailey: I prefer humble prizes
'Sod Big Books and little books alike, it's the individual voice that finally matters. If it has the power to enchant it gets my vote'
January 2012
Charles Dickens at 200
Charles Dickens's minor characters are no small matter
Paul Bailey
Paul Bailey: The diverse and disordered world of his novels contains figures we see in just a phrase or two, but are as vivid as any in fiction
September 2011
Books blog
Judging the Booker prize shortlist
By putting readability above all else, this year's Man Booker judges have ruled out some fine novels
May 2011
Books blog
Last words on the typewriter
Paul Bailey: The machines I've been using for 40 years to refine my novels are passing into history. I'm not convinced the PC is an improvement
April 2011
Books blog
Beryl Bainbridge deserves her Booker, but she was never robbed
Sam Jordison: Bainbridge's repeated disappointments as a shortlisted author resulted from bad luck, not conspiracy
February 2011
The Guardian Books podcast
Guardian Books podcast: Life, death and literary critics
