The Double Life of Books

Peter D. McDonald is Professor of English and Related Literature at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of St Hugh's College. He writes on literature, the modern state and free expression; the history of writing systems, cultural institutions and publishing; multilingualism, translation and interculturality; and on the promise of creative criticism. His principal publications include British Literary Culture and Publishing Practice, 1880-1914 (1997); Making Meaning: 'Printers of the Mind' and Other Essays by D F McKenzie, co-edited with Michael Suarez (2002); The Literature Police: Apartheid Censorship and its Cultural Consequences (2009; see also theliteraturepolice.com), which was shortlisted for the Warwick Prize for Writing 2011; and Artefacts of Writing: Ideas of the State and Communities of Letters from Matthew Arnold to Xu Bing (2017; see also artefactsofwriting.com). He is also co-author of PEN International: An Illustrated History (2021), which was Motovun Book of the Year for 2021.