Neil Macgregor

Inside the Booker Prize

From our UK edition

It’s been a great week for the powerful fantasies of fiction (see more below), but over the weekend no novel anywhere in the world could compete with the fantasy of British politics. Continental Europe watched spellbound as the Prime Minister and her Chancellor humiliated themselves and the standing of the UK. The reactions of the different nations were predictable, but none the less excruciating for that. In Germany, where journalists have disconcertingly deep knowledge of British constitutional history, the reaction was dismay, as a distracted friend inflicts yet further damage on themselves.

Spreading the word

From our UK edition

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Read in the name of your Lord Who created. Read and your Lord is Most Honourable, who taught to write with the pen, taught man what he knew not. Two texts from the Middle East, St John’s Gospel and the Holy Qur’an both proclaim the primacy and authority of words. The Evangelist’s Word is the eternal creativity of God which, in Jesus, became flesh: the Word Incarnate. In the passage from the Qur’an — the first of the Prophet Mohammed’s revelations — God announces his intention to use the written word to spread truth for all to read and learn: the Word Inscribed. In Europe, we long ago divided the thinking word from the pleasing image.