Olivia Laing
““Among the most significant voices of our time.””
© Sophie DavidsonOlivia Laing is a widely acclaimed writer and critic. They are the author of six books, including To the River (2011), The Trip to Echo Spring (2013) and The Lonely City (2016). They are a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and in 2018 was awarded the Windham-Campbell Prize for non-fiction. Their books have been translated into twenty-two languages.
Their first novel, Crudo, is a real-time account of the turbulent summer of 2017. It was a Sunday Times top ten bestseller and won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.
Laing writes on art and culture for the Guardian, Financial Times and New York Times, among many other publications. They’ve written catalogue essays on a variety of contemporary artists, including Andy Warhol, Agnes Martin, Derek Jarman, Wolfgang Tillmans and Chantal Joffe. Their collected essays on art, Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency, were published in 2020.
Their most recent book is Everybody: A Book About Freedom (2021). It’s an ambitious survey of the body and its discontents, using the renegade psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich to chart a daring course through the long struggle for bodily freedom.
Laing’s new book is an exploration of gardens and utopia. The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise was published on 2 May 2024.
Published works
