Lionel Shriver is a novelist whose books include We Need to Talk About Kevin and Big Brother
May 2021
Lionel Shriver: ‘A chosen death is an authorial act – I’ve never cared for stories that end on ellipses’
The author’s new novel centres around an elderly couple bound in a suicide pact. Watching her parents age, the subject of dying with dignity is never far from her mind
April 2021
‘When I started, the heavens didn’t part’: Lionel Shriver on We Need to Talk About Kevin
The novelist’s career was in the doldrums when she began writing about a difficult boy and his ambiguous relationship with his mother
June 2020
Books that made me
Lionel Shriver: 'Moby-Dick? Get on with it: did the old bastard catch the fish, or didn’t he?'
The We Need to Talk About Kevin author on the Pulitzer winner she couldn’t finish and the Elizabeth Taylor novel that made her laugh
February 2019
You Know You Want This review – Cat Person and other tales of the unexpected
While enjoyable, Kristen Roupenian’s horror stories don’t live up to the hype afforded her New Yorker hit
April 2018
Who Is Rich? by Matthew Klam – review
This tale of a philandering cartoonist is an enjoyably deadpan ode to the disappointments of middle age
December 2017
Let's talk: a conversation special
‘It feels good to know who lives behind those doors’: Lionel Shriver, Jon McGregor and others meet the neighbours
What do you know about the people who live next door? We asked five novelists to knock on a stranger’s door
November 2017
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng – review
A story of morals and motherhood set against the mystery of a burning house is well crafted but leaves our critic cold
July 2017
Best holiday reads 2017, picked by writers – part two
What to pack along with the aftersun and flipflops? From novels about gay footballers and updated Greek classics to biographies and poetry, our guest critics offer their holiday must-reads
February 2017
We need to talk about sense and sensitivity
Lionel Shriver
The Blot: A Novel review – a gambler out of luck
January 2017
Faced with current reality, how can fiction compete?
Lionel Shriver
Europa
After its Brexit-Trump reversal, here's what the left must do
Lionel Shriver, Tony Travers, Patrick Weil, Christophe Guilluy and Franzisca Zanker
December 2016
Reasons to be hopeful
Humanity may self-destruct, but the universe can cope perfectly without us
Lionel Shriver
Chances are that the cosmos neither treasures nor regrets humans. It permits us, with marvellous neutrality, and could do without our interference
September 2016
Lionel Shriver's full speech: 'I hope the concept of cultural appropriation is a passing fad'
Lionel Shriver
This is the full transcript of the keynote speech, Fiction and Identity Politics, that author Lionel Shriver gave at the Brisbane Writers Festival
August 2016
Richard Ford, Joyce Carol Oates, David Hare and more ... leading writers on Donald Trump
The Great Gatsby, Elmer Gantry, The Wizard of Oz – top writers choose books to make sense of the US election
July 2016
Book of the day
The Allegations by Mark Lawson – review
The arts critic, who left Radio 4 amid allegations of bullying, turns his guns on the witch-hunt culture in a sharp if slightly bloated tale
June 2016
Lionel Shriver’s teenage diary: bad spelling and unreturned affections
The We Need to Talk About Kevin author is laying bare her adolescent self for Radio 4. Here, she talks about her refusal to go to church and her years-long crush on a boy called Roger
May 2016
The Guardian Books podcast
Lionel Shriver on writing The Mandibles – books podcast
Lionel Shriver: is there any better villain than a banker?
May 2015
If you want more accurate polls, stop shaming shy Tories
Lionel Shriver
We cling to the notion that only the left is decent and just. No wonder conservatives are intimidated
