Will Self

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    • Psychogeography
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    • Great Apes
    • Cock And Bull
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    • Sore Sites
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    • The Quantity Theory Of Insanity
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On Britain’s relationship with its intelligentsia

May 8, 2011

“What the British seem to like are television historians and naturalists, not public intellectuals. You can’t help feeling that’s because one supplies narrative and the other supplies facts, and the British are traditionally empiricists so they/we have a resistance to theory and to theoreticians playing too prominent a role in public life.

“Intellectuals do exist in this country and have existed. If you think of the Foucaults and Derridas in France, we have our Terry Eagletons and Colin MacCabes. People such as Niall Ferguson and Simon Schama: think of them what you will, but they’re not lightweights – though they’re not necessarily high-order theoreticians.   More...

Blair and New Labour: I told you so

April 18, 2010

‘During the 1997 election I put up a handmade poster in the house where I lived that read: “A Vote for Labour is Not Necessarily a Vote for That Sanctimonious Git Blair.” I-told-you-so is never an attractive quality, but while my sign may have been factually incorrect, I was spot-on when it came to the man himself, which was why my tick was placed elsewhere in 2001, 2005, and will be again come May.   More...

My body & soul

November 19, 2009

Are you healthy?
“I have the same sign on my office door that Field Marshal Montgomery had outside his tent during the desert campaign; it reads ‘I am 99% fit, are you?’ I’ve always been pretty fit. Even when I was a heroin addict I was a fit heroin addict.”

Read the rest of Will Self’s answers from the Observer’s My body & soul here.

My old man: a voyage around our fathers

July 1, 2008

This was published to celebrate Father’s Day, June 15 2008:

Will Self was born in 1961 and raised in an ‘effortlessly dull’ north London suburb. His father, Peter, held the chair in public administration at the London School of Economics. Self’s parents divorced when he was 18. He worked as a copywriter and a New Statesman cartoonist before his first collection of short stories, The Quantity Theory of Insanity, was published to critical and popular acclaim in 1991. Doris Lessing said of Quantity …, ‘absurdity unfurls logically from absurdity, but always as a mirror of what we are living in — and wish we didn’t.’
  More...

Chris The Saviour: Will Self on Chris Morris – The Observer, March 1997

January 29, 2006

Chris Morris’ Brass Eye turns satire into art of a very high order indeed

Will Self
Sunday March 9, 1997
The Observer

About halfway through Wednesday night’s final episode of Brass Eye (Channel 4), it began to occur to me that Chris Morris might possibly be God. The idea of a Morrisian deity is appealing for a number of reasons: it explains why the world is so consummately absurd it explains why there is little real justice to be had for the poor and the oppressed and it provides a convincing explanation for why public life in this country is dominated by talented mediocrities.   More...



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Will’s Latest Book

Will Self - Will
Will Self's latest book Will is published in hardback by Viking on 14 November 2019.

You can pre-order at Amazon.co.uk.

Will’s Previous Books

Will Self - Phone
Phone
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  Shark
Shark
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
Umbrella
Umbrella
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  The Unbearable Lightness Of Being A Prawn Cracker
The Unbearable Lightness Of Being A Prawn Cracker
More info
Amazon.co.uk
The Undivided Self
The Undivided Self
More info Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  Walking To Hollywood
Walking To Hollywood
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
The Butt
The Butt
More info Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  Grey Area
Grey Area
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
Junk Mail
Junk Mail
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  Great Apes
Great Apes
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
Cock And Bull
Cock And Bull
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  The Quantity Theory Of Insanity
The Quantity Theory Of Insanity
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
The Sweet Smell Of Psychosis
The Sweet Smell of Psychosis
More info

Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  My Idea Of Fun
My Idea Of Fun
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
The Book Of Dave
The Book Of Dave
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  Psychogeography
Psychogeography
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
Psycho Too
Psycho II
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  Liver
Liver
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
How The Dead Live
How The Dead Live
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  Tough Tough Toys For Tough Tough Boys
Tough Tough Toys For Tough Tough Boys
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
Dr Mukti And Other Tales Of Woe
Dr Mukti And Other Tales Of Woe
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  Dorian
Dorian
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
Feeding Frenzy
Feeding Frenzy
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
  Sore Sites
Sore Sites
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
Perfidious Man
Perfidious Man
More info
Amazon.co.uk
Amazon.com
   
Bloomsbury  
Penguin

About / Contact

will-self.com is the official website for British novelist and journalist Will Self. The site is managed by Chris Hall and Chris Mitchell.

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Will’s Writing Room

Will's Writing Room
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Recent Posts

  • In Praise of Literary Promiscuity in the Digital Age
  • In conversation for the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival
  • What The Crown tells us about the monarchy
  • Will by Will Self published in paperback
  • ‘Is there a Culture War and can it be won?’
  • The welcome return of Radio 4’s News Quiz audience
  • How to Academy events
  • An unforgettable encounter with Terence Conran
  • The Phone and Phone Booth Assemblage Considered as Mise en Abyme
  • What gaming tells us about the human condition

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