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Clive James

Headshot of Clive James

Australian broadcaster and critic Clive James's writing on life, death and everything in between for the Guardian and Observer. He died in 2019 aged 80

July 2023

  • Bob Dylan performs with The Band at the Forum in Los Angeles, February, 1974.

    From the Guardian archive
    Writings and Drawings by Bob Dylan reviewed – archive, 1973

    26 July 1973: Clive James reviews a collection of Dylan’s lyrics, poems, writings and personal drawings

September 2022

  • Queen Elizabeth ll makes a speech as President Ronald Reagan laughs during a banquet in March 1983 in San Francisco.

    From the Observer archive: Queen Elizabeth II special
    From the archive: Clive James on the Queen’s encounter with Ronald Reagan, 1983

    Elizabeth II endured many tours during her reign, but few will have been recorded with such wit or observation as this visit to California

September 2020

  • Clive James

    Clive James: 'The poems I remember are the milestones marking the journey of my life'

    What makes great poetry? An exclusive extract from the late critic’s final book The Fire of Joy celebrates the poems he loved most

November 2019

  • Clive James ... ‘Looking back, you realise that glimpses are all you ever get’

    Clive James on Trump, War and Peace – and furry bears

    From meeting the Queen to his thoughts on Jeremy Corbyn’s beard, here are some choice cuts from the writer’s column in Guardian Weekend magazine

October 2019

  • Australian author, critic, broadcaster and poet Clive James, sat next to the maple tree that inspired his poem Japanese Maple in his garden at home in Cambridge, September 2015. Photo by Alicia Canter Commissioned for Guardian Weekend

    Books that made me
    Clive James: ‘The most overrated books almost all emerged from a single genre – magic realism’

    The author, critic and poet on reading Biggles as a child and his admiration of Philip Larkin

February 2019

  • Composite of famous faces inside a red heart, for a piece about teenage crushes

    'Grace Kelly seemed like an angel': Clive James and others on their first crushes

    With Valentine’s Day in view, the veteran author and more come clean about their crazy, stupid, teenage loves

September 2018

  • Illustration for Clive James poem

    Clive James on his new epic poem: ‘The story of a mind heading into oblivion’

    In and out of hospital, the writer felt compelled to write something new – an epic, with himself as the hero

January 2018

  • Illustration of TV show The Crown

    'She is the Queen, whereas you are Joe Shmuck': Clive James on The Crown

    How to recover from my latest hospital stay? Watch The Crown – twice, and remember a royal meeting of my own

June 2017

  • Steve McQueen, second left, in The Magnificent Seven.

    Reports of my death
    Clive James: ‘The trick of coping with a flop is to go on pretending it is a disguised success’

  • Monastery of Agios Savvas, Pothia, Kalymnos, Dodecanese, Greece

    Reports of my death
    Clive James: ‘My wife is visiting the warmer bits of Europe before the whole shebang disintegrates’

  • Raw beef steak on plate

    Reports of my death
    Clive James: ‘Australia’s grammar is a vestige, a mere gesture’

  • Balloons and flowers in St Ann’s Square in Manchester.

    Reports of my death
    Clive James: ‘In a crisis such as Manchester, words aren’t easily handled’

May 2017

  • ‘My wheelchair looked like a Ferrari from the heyday of the Mille Miglia.’

    Reports of my death
    Clive James: ‘My new wheelchair is a thing of beauty and precision’

  • Felicity Jones in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

    Reports of my death
    Clive James: ‘The Death Star is threatening me with a lethal dose of boredom’

  • Bud Abbott (left) and Lou Costello

    Reports of my death
    Clive James: ‘Back in the 50s, I saw Abbott and Costello die a death. Two deaths’

  • William Shakespeare: ‘Tolstoy was convinced he wasn’t much good.’

    Reports of my death
    Clive James: ‘I have put aside Shakespeare, to remind myself that others can write, too’

April 2017

  • Peter Capaldi in The Thick Of It

    Reports of my death
    Clive James: ‘A reader has complained about my still being alive’

  • Justin Rose (R) and Sergio García after the 2017 Masters play-off.

    Reports of my death
    Clive James: ‘I regret not calling my book Nail-Biting Slug-Fest On The Last Green’

  • Margaret Thatcher

    Reports of my death
    Clive James: ‘I am planning for a future in which I appear only as a shimmering outline’

  • British prime minister Theresa May

    Reports of my death
    Clive James: ‘Let me tell you about my other career as a spy’

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