Kae

My earliest reading memoryI was on the tube with my siblings when I was around seven. I was reading Sue Townsend’s The Queen and I, which is about the royal family relocating to a council estate. We had to change trains, but I was so absorbed, I only realised as the doors closed that my siblings were shouting at me from the platform and I was going on without them.My favourite book growing upUrsula K Le Guin’s Earthsea trilogy. I reread it recently because I wanted to give a copy to my niece, and it struck me how many of…

Michael Rosen. Photograph: Karen Robinson/The ObserverMichael Rosen: ‘He nudged people into seeing the world through the eyes of the oppressed’British author and poetBenjamin was a hero to millions of people all over the world. His mix of poetry, novels, wisdom, humour and sheer presence grabbed us and delighted us. I first saw him when he was starting out in the poetry clubs, dancing a poem about his mother, voicing his poetry in a voice I hadn’t heard before: Brummie-Caribbean. It was an honour and treat to work with…

A meditation on art and creativity, On Connection is the musician, playwright, novelist and performance poet Kae Tempest’s first work of nonfiction. Written early in the pandemic, this extended essay mixes memoir and philosophical musings as it examines the need “to play, to create, to reflect and release” and the ways these impulses connect us.Tempest – who uses they/them pronouns – narrates with a rhythmic urgency and fierce humanity that will be familiar to anyone who has seen them perform live. In the opening chapter,…