An Education

Lynn Barber

In an age of fawning celebrity interviews conducted under the eyes of a team of PR people, usually to promote a new book or film, the Demon Barber, as she is known, is a breath of fresh, if rather bracing air. She has a tremendous curiosity about people and is a good listener, writing punchy, revealing pieces when the subject is interesting: the painter Howard Hodgkin, for example, Rudolf Nureyev, Roald Dahl or Muriel Spark.

In 2003 she published an essay in Granta about her teenage relationship with an older man. An Education includes this, but also covers her life before and after that episode — which was the inspiration for the film An Education, scripted by Nick Hornby.