From the Academy

The Academy is a great store of knowledge and opinion about great books. From time to time we ask its members to write a short piece on books they have admired. Here are some of their responses, most recently about 2015 Folio Prize winner Akhil Sharma’s Family Life, and further back about the one book they would have liked to win the Prize if it had always existed.

Kevin Barry on Eimear McBride

A Girl is a Half-Formed ThingA Girl is a Half-Formed Thing is a fierce and terrifically sustained prose performance. It’s an uncanny synthesis of rawness and control, and it reminds us that the very best books never lose resolve and never compromise.