Het zijn de twee beste dingen in het leven: eten en seks. In Tart vertelt Slutty Cheff een rauw coming-of-age-verhaal dat zich afspeelt in de wereld van de Londense fine dining.

An incisive, stylish exploration of how Truman Capote wrote In Cold Blood and the ethics of storytelling by a star non-fiction writer

'A gem of a book' The Times

In 1960, Truman Capote arrived in the small town of Palamós on the Costa Brava.He'd hoped a short break from New York's social scene would help him finish the book he was writing about two young men convicted of a horrific murder. He wound up staying in Europe for three years of agonising self-exile, wrestling with his haunting material, crafting a masterpiece, and waiting for the event that would allow him to finish it - the execution of those two men.

Following in Capote's footsteps in Palamós, celebrated journalist Leila Guerriero finds almost no trace of those turbulent years. As she sorts through a jumble of competing local accounts and blatant fabrications, she launches a dazzling enquiry into the curious afterlife of writing - and the dark complexities of turning life into literature.

‘The best account yet of the life of one of the great English-language writers of the last century.’ – The New World

'A brave and moving book' - Adam Sisman, the Guardian

‘Fascinating...very timely ...will introduce new readers to a writer Priest rightly calls one of the greatest of the 20th century.’ – Sunday Times

This book is about J. G. Ballard. This book is also about death, love and time travel.

J. G. Ballard possessed one of the most astonishing imaginations of our age, and he had an intense and turbulent history – an experience famously fictionalised in Empire of the Sun. Ballard’s novels are among the finest and most unusual fiction that has ever been published. Whether in the hyper-surrealism of High-Rise or the erotic violence of Crash, he upended the morality and reality of our world.

As a young writer, it had been Ballard’s stories, most of all, that had helped cement Christopher Priest’s passion for science fiction. He set out to write a biography that would make people understand what he already knew: that
J. G. Ballard wasn’t just a cult writer — he was one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century.

In 2024, Christopher died. He had been diagnosed with prostate cancer, the same disease that killed J. G. Ballard — the man whose biography he’d spent his last months working on.

When Nina and Christopher first met, they bonded over their love for Ballard’s writing. When it became clear that Christopher would not have time to finish this biography, Nina promised him that she would complete it. If the book began as a tribute from Priest to Ballard, it is now also a love story written by Nina for Christopher. With access to never-before-seen material, The Illuminated Man explores the history and themes of Ballard’s life and – with Ballardian strangeness – celebrates and mourns for those that are gone.