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Commentary
This page of the Martin Amis Web presents the author in his own words, commenting on contemporary politics, literature, and culture. When available, excerpts of Amis's works are also provided, including some rarities.
Amis's comments usually provoke lively debate, and interested readers would benefit from searching the databases Lexis-Nexis and EBSCO Host for the letters and responses these articles inspired.
Amis's essays are increasingly being featured online for limited periods, so some of the links below may be dead. The PDFs, however, will open cleanly.
Jump to: 2000-present | 1980s & 1990s | Excerpts
Select Appearances and Literary Journalism: 2000 to present Because Amis's essays and public appearances routinely inspire additional discussion -- and follow-up interviews -- users of the Martin Amis Web should also consult the Interviews page.
Terrorism's New Structure Amis's essay in the Wall Street Journal, 16 August 2008. LINK | PDF
Amis leads debate on religion and literature At the University of Manchester, 1 July 2008. LINK
On BBC One's This Week Program Discussing contemporary politics with Andrew Neil, Diane Abbott, and Michael Portillo. March 6, 2008. LINK | WMV (16MB)
Amis, Maureen Freely, and Ed Hussain Discussing the topic "Literature and Terrorism" at the Centre for New Writing, University of Manchester, 3 December 2007. LINK | MP3 (67MB) For additional commentary on this appearance see:
Jenny McCartney, The Telegraph, 9 December LINK | PDF Maureen Freely, Guardian blogs, 4 December LINK | PDF Tom Chatfield, Prospect Magazine blog, 4 December LINK | PDF Riazat Butt, the Guardian, 4 December LINK | PDF
No, I am not a racist Amis responds to Ronan Bennett's accusations. The Guardian, 1 December 2007. See also Bennett's original article (19 Nov) and responses from Christopher Hitchens and Ian McEwan. AMIS | PDF | BENNETT | HITCHENS | MCEWAN
Martin Amis & Andrew Anthony: On writing and radical Islam LINK | MP3 (35MB) For additional commentary on this appearance see:
Chris Morris, The Observer, 25 November LINK | PDF Emily Hill, Spiked Online, 17 October LINK | PDF Nigel Reynolds, The Telegraph, 15 October LINK | PDF Padraig Reidy, The Guardian, 12 October LINK | PDF
Monsters A conversation between Amis, Ian Buruma, and Bill Buford at the 2007 New Yorker Festival, 5-7 October 2007. LINK | VID (315MB)
Amis, John Banville, and Will Self Discussing contemporary literature at the Centre for New Writing Launch Event, St. Ann's Church, September 2007. LINK | MP3 (68MB)
9/11 and the Cult of Death Reflecting on 9/11, 7/7, and radical Islam's "abnormal interest ... in violent death" The Times, 11 September 2007. Replies by Michael White and Alex Stein.
Amis, Amis, and Bond Discussing the James Bond novels and Kingsley Amis's contributions. BBC Radio 4, 17 July 2007. LINK1 | LINK2 | RAM
The Long Kiss Goodbye On Tony Blair's final days as prime minister. The Guardian, 2 June 2007. LINK | PDF See also the Guardian's excellent multimedia coverage of this story, which includes voice-over commentary by Amis (Macromedia 8 required) LINK
The Terrorist Stays in the Picture On Osama bin Laden. Time magazine, 14 May 2007. WORD
Martin Amis reviews The Islamist The Times, 5 May 2007. Review of Ed Hussain, The Islamist: Why I Joined Radical Islam in Britain, What I Saw Inside and Why I Left LINK | PDF
No Laughing Matter: Martin Amis in Conversation with Christopher Hitchens Speaking about Saul Bellow as part of Jewish Book Week 2007. 25 February 2007.
Amis reading from House of Meetings At the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, MA, 31 January 2007. LINK | MP3
On BBC's Question Time from London Program Discussing contemporary politics, 7 December 2006. LINK | WMV | POD
On BBC1's This Week Program Speaking about terrorism and Iraq, 26 October 2006. LINK | FLV
Deranging Consequences of 9/11 The Times, 21 October 2006. Review of Bob Woodward, State of Denial. LINK | PDF
Amis on Las Vegas, Islam, and Poker The Australian Magazine, 21 October 2006. WORD
Amis condemns Muslim extremists as 'miserable bastards' Attacking militant Islam at the Cheltenham Festival of Literature, London. Reported by Guy Adams in The Independent, 9 October 2006. LINK | PDF
At the 2006 Edinburgh Book Festival LINK | WMV Discussing House of Meetings and contemporary politics. 4 October 2006.
Amis Introduces House of Meetings 3 October 2006, the Royal Festival Hall, London. Steve Braunias reports on the event for the New Zealand website Stuff. LINK | RPT | PDF
The Age of Horrorism Amis's controversial, 12,000 word essay on Islam and Islamism, marking the five year anniversary of the 9/11 bombings. The Observer, 10 September 2006. See the rejoinder by Indian writer Pankaj Mishra (Observer, 17 September) and, far less seriously of course, "The Last Days of Martin Amis, by Muhammad Atta" in the satirical magazine Private Eye (issue 1167). AMIS | PDF1 | PDF2 | PDF3 | MISHRA | PDF | LINK2 | PDF
The Real Conspiracy Behind 9/11 The Times, 2 September 2006. Review of Lawrence Wright, The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. LINK | PDF
All That Survives Is Love The Times, 1 June 2006. Amis reviews the film United 93. LINK | WORD
Martin Amis at the 2006 PEN World Voices Festival The PEN American Center, 25-30 April 2006. Click here to visit the excellent World Voices home page for a full listing of the program and other speakers. Click here to listen to Amis's readings and interviews. See the Interviews section of The Martin Amis Web for direct links and downloadable files of these recordings.
Amis and Stephen King in Discussion LINK | PDF From the 29 December 2005 New Yorker festival. Covered by Madeleine Murray for the Sydney Morning Herald.
Authors on the Front Line: Martin Amis Amis on street violence in Columbia, Sunday Times Magazine, 6 February 2005 WORD
In Search of Dieguito On soccer star Diego Armando Maradona. Guardian, 1 October 2004 LINK | PDF
Reading Martin Amis Peg Eby-Jager writes a detailed account of the April 20 2004 Amis-Hitchens appearance at UCLA's "Our Favorite Writers" series. WORD | PDF
Amis Introduces Yellow Dog for Meet the Author LINK | FLV Video
The Slow Birthing of Yellow Dog Miscellaneous comments from Amis about the composition of Yellow Dog. WORD | PDF
The World: an explanation Daily Telegraph, 8 March 2003. "Martin Amis" interprets the post-9/11 world. A parody; posted here only because database searches return this listing, mistakenly, as legitimate. WORD
The Palace of the End The Guardian, 4 March 2003. The Guardian has removed this link, but Jackson Browne (the singer) posted it on his website, although the text cannot be copied. Other links do not have this problem. LINK1 | LINK2 | WORD | PDF | LINK3 | PDF
Is There a Monster in the House? Amis speaks at the New Yorker Festival, 28 September 2002. WORD | PDF
Window on a Changed World Amis's one-year retrospective on the 9/11 terrorist bombings in the U.S. Daily Telegraph, 11 September 2002. EXCERPT | PDF | FULL
The Voice of the Lonely Crowd "After September 11, writing fiction seemed a pointlessly indulgent exercise. But, Martin Amis argues, against the deadly excesses of politics and religion, the novel is a supremely rational undertaking" The Guardian, 1 June 2002. LINK | PDF
See also John Pilger's attack on this piece in the New Statesman, 17 June 2002. LINK
Age Will Win Amis reviews Richard Eyre's film about Iris Murdoch, John Bayley, Alzheimer's disease, and "the tragedy of time" Guardian Unlimited, 21 December 2001. LINK | PDF
Fear and Loathing Amis on the September 11 terrorist bombings in the U.S. "Their aim was to torture tens of thousands, and to terrify hundreds of millions. In this, they have succeeded." The Guardian, 18 September 2001. LINK | PDF
A Rough Trade Amis on the San Fernando Valley porn industry for the 17 March 2001 Guardian (this essay originally appeared as "Sex in America" in Talk magazine, February 2001: 98-103, 133-35. LINK | PDF1 | PDF2
Letter to Britney Spears On the occasion of her memoir. From "The Britney Papers," a series of letters from Norman Mailer, J.D. Salinger, George Plimpton, Camille Paglia and Martin Amis. From the Modern Humorist, 20 June 2000. LINK | PDF
Select Appearances and Literary Journalism: 1980s and 1990s On Nabokov and Literary Greatness At the Nabokov Centenary Celebration, 15 April 1999. LINK1 | LINK2 | WORD
On Jorge Luis Borges from a 14 January 1999 British Library Colloquium. WORD | PDF
The Shock of the Nou Amis reports on Manchester United's European Cup victory. The Observer, 30 May 1999. LINK | PDF
Amis in Chicago 1998 An account of Amis's appearance at Barbara's Bookstore (3 February 1998), where he discussed Bill Clinton and read from Night Train. WORD | PDF
High for a Time Amis reviews Tom Wolfe's A Man In Full for The Guardian, 7 November 1998. LINK | PDF
How I Write Excerpt from The Times, 10 January 1998. WORD | PDF
Political Correctness: Robert Bly and Philip Larkin Amis at Harvard reading his essays on Iron John and the politics of Philip Larkin's reputation, 30 January 1997. LINK | PDF
The Mirror of Ourselves Amis on Princess Diana in Time Magazine, September 15, 1997. "She takes her place among the broken glass and crushed metal, in the iconography of the crash, alongside James Dean, Jayne Mansfield and Princess Grace". EXCERPT | PDF | FULL
Amis on J.G. Ballard Amis's review-essay on Ballard's novel Crash and David Cronenberg's film adaptation Independent on Sunday, 10 November 1996: 8-9. WORD | PDF
Amis on Hillary Clinton. Amis reviews It Takes a Village, by Hillary Clinton. The Sunday Times, 17 March 1996. WORD | PDF
Amis on Don DeLillo. From Amis's review of Mao II, by Don DeLillo, 1991. WORD | PDF
The World According to Spielberg From "The Observer Century in Films," The Guardian & Observer online, 21 November 1982. LINK | PDF
Excerpts and e-texts Excerpt from The Second Plane LINK | PDF First chapter, published in the New York Times, April 27, 2008.
Short Story published in Granta, Winter 2007.
Excerpt from House of Meetings LINK | PDF Accompanies the 15 March 2007 interview with Amis on the KCRW website.
The Last Days of Muhammad Atta Originally published in The New Yorker, 24 April 2006: 153-63. Reprinted in The Observer, 3 September 2006 and originally intended to be part of House of Meetings. LINK [removed] | PDF1 | PDF2 | LINK2 | PDF
Excerpt from Koba the Dread AMIS | HITCHENS Amis's letter to "Comrade" Christopher Hitchens. The Guardian, 31 August 2002. See also Hitchens's response, "Don't. Be. Silly" (The Guardian, 4 September 2002) as well as Anne Applebaum's profile of the controversy, "The Gulag Argumento", for Slate.com: LINK | PDF
Excert from Night Train from The New York Times. LINK | PDF
"My Missing." Excerpt from Experience at the New York Times Book Review. LINK
E-text of the story from Heavy Water, originally appearing in The Encounter, 1976.
E-text of the story from Heavy Water at the New York Times Book Review.
"Career Move" LINK | PDF1 | PDF2 E-text at the Random House web site.
Excerpt from "Lolita Reconsidered" LINK | PDF Originally published in The Atlantic, September 1992, pp. 109-20.
Manuscript Page from London Fields GIF (courtesy the Paris Review)
Excerpt from Invasion of the Space Invaders (1982) PDF One of Amis's rarest first editions. Amis's favorite game? Defender. "If you ever see a Defender which bears the initials MLA in the All-Time Greatest column of its Hall of Fame—well, that's me, pal. I earned it." For more quotations, read Paul Collins's article "Their Back Pages" in the Village Voice (26 September 2005): LINK | PDF
It's Digusting at Your Age PDF An early play printed in The New Review, September 1976, pp. 19-24.
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