I met Henri Cole at his apartment in Boston’s South End on a sweaty July day. After the hot, busy street, his rooms at the top of several flights of stairs were airy, cool, and elegant. The artworks of his friends and collaborators Kiki Smith and Jenny Holzer adorn the walls; curiosities and objet d...

‘Hard-core Innocence’ — Alan Hollinghurst, from Poet to Novelist In 1981, reviewing D. M. Thomas’s The White Hotel, the 27-year-old Alan Hollinghurst wrote, ‘Poets often mature earlier than novelists; behind the romantic image of young poetic genius lies a clearly identifiable pattern whereby a...

I met Alan Hollinghurst at home in London on a warm June day. From his house, which is nestled on a leafy, steeply sloping street near Hampstead Heath, one could begin to see the scenes of the south end of the park: children in bright swimsuits splashing in the kiddie pool, couples lounging on the s...