Kat Lister
@katlister.bsky.social
Stay afraid, but do it anyway / words: Guardian, Observer, i paper, the Quietus / lecturing: City University / agent: http://blakefriedmann.co.uk/kat-lister / book: https://blakefriedmann.co.uk/news/kat-lister-fragile-bodies-auction-weidenfeld
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Kat Lister
@katlister.bsky.social
· Jul 4
Kat Lister’s beguiling exploration of art, FRAGILE BODIES, won at auction by Weidenfeld & Nicolson — Blake Friedmann
Kat Lister’s new non-fiction book FRAGILE BODIES: Art Born of Bodily Trauma, exploring the impact of physical adversity on the lives of seven extraordinary artists who confronted and transformed their...
blakefriedmann.co.uk
Hello everyone, I have exciting news! (📣):
I am fascinated by the continued wrangling over Hilma af Klint’s legacy & this raises so many Qs about art scholarship in general. Firstly, who gets to steward it & why? Added to the mix, how best to define authorship when it was subject to outside collaboration?
The Strange Afterlife of Hilma af Klint, Painting’s Posthumous Star
As af Klint’s fame has grown, so have the questions—about what she believed, whom she worked with, and who should be allowed to speak in her name.
www.newyorker.com
November 29, 2025 at 10:05 AM
I am fascinated by the continued wrangling over Hilma af Klint’s legacy & this raises so many Qs about art scholarship in general. Firstly, who gets to steward it & why? Added to the mix, how best to define authorship when it was subject to outside collaboration?
Another characteristically niche Q from yours truly but does anyone know of any writers/thinkers who have explored the symbolism of the window? I'm keen to dive into its meaning in particular art works that I'm writing about atm & wondering if I'm missing anything...
November 28, 2025 at 10:54 AM
Another characteristically niche Q from yours truly but does anyone know of any writers/thinkers who have explored the symbolism of the window? I'm keen to dive into its meaning in particular art works that I'm writing about atm & wondering if I'm missing anything...
Reposted by Kat Lister
I love commissioning these for our supporters and this was a particular joy – absolutely rammed with bangers. Have also just read next month's essay, Tariq Goddard brilliant on the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes. @thequietus.com would be dead without subscribers & I hope these perks are a fine reward.
In the fiftieth Organic Intelligence, Anu Shukla explores the influence of Bappi Lahiri on Indian music both at home and as an inspiration to British Asian artists including M.I.A.
Organic Intelligence L: The Legacy of #Bollywood Disco Legend, #BappiLahiri
buff.ly/FlBG7lg
Organic Intelligence L: The Legacy of #Bollywood Disco Legend, #BappiLahiri
buff.ly/FlBG7lg
November 27, 2025 at 1:04 PM
I love commissioning these for our supporters and this was a particular joy – absolutely rammed with bangers. Have also just read next month's essay, Tariq Goddard brilliant on the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes. @thequietus.com would be dead without subscribers & I hope these perks are a fine reward.
Tried to wave at my boyfriend from the organ loft but he wasn’t having any of it. The Clientele sounding wonderful last night at St Pancras Old Church, what a beautiful night:
November 27, 2025 at 9:09 AM
Tried to wave at my boyfriend from the organ loft but he wasn’t having any of it. The Clientele sounding wonderful last night at St Pancras Old Church, what a beautiful night:
Reposted by Kat Lister
We are playing two sets at both shows this week. In the second set we’ll concentrate on songs from the violet hour LP
Times:
Doors: 7.30pm
First set: 8:15pm - 9pm
Interval - 15 mins
Second set: 9:15pm - 10:15pm
curfew 10:30pm
Times:
Doors: 7.30pm
First set: 8:15pm - 9pm
Interval - 15 mins
Second set: 9:15pm - 10:15pm
curfew 10:30pm
November 25, 2025 at 9:48 AM
We are playing two sets at both shows this week. In the second set we’ll concentrate on songs from the violet hour LP
Times:
Doors: 7.30pm
First set: 8:15pm - 9pm
Interval - 15 mins
Second set: 9:15pm - 10:15pm
curfew 10:30pm
Times:
Doors: 7.30pm
First set: 8:15pm - 9pm
Interval - 15 mins
Second set: 9:15pm - 10:15pm
curfew 10:30pm
Reposted by Kat Lister
Jimmy Cliff had one of the sweetest voices in popular music of all time.
It was a pleasure to speak to him a dozen years ago for this profile. Rest in peace sir.
thequietus.com/interviews/j...
It was a pleasure to speak to him a dozen years ago for this profile. Rest in peace sir.
thequietus.com/interviews/j...
Many Rivers Crossed: Jimmy Cliff Interviewed | The Quietus
Jimmy Cliff was born James Chambers on April’s Fool’s Day, 1948 in the Somerton District of St. James near Montego Bay, Jamaica. He reputedly chose the stage name Cliff to reflect the heights he inten...
thequietus.com
November 24, 2025 at 2:40 PM
Jimmy Cliff had one of the sweetest voices in popular music of all time.
It was a pleasure to speak to him a dozen years ago for this profile. Rest in peace sir.
thequietus.com/interviews/j...
It was a pleasure to speak to him a dozen years ago for this profile. Rest in peace sir.
thequietus.com/interviews/j...
I had to sit very quietly after reading this otherworldly essay by Tatiana Schlossberg, it will stay with me for a very long time. I wish she could, too:
A Battle with My Blood
When I was diagnosed with leukemia, my first thought was that this couldn’t be happening to me, to my family.
www.newyorker.com
November 24, 2025 at 8:57 AM
I had to sit very quietly after reading this otherworldly essay by Tatiana Schlossberg, it will stay with me for a very long time. I wish she could, too:
Can I also just say that this is brilliant reporting by my pal Jude, questioning not only where Westminster's priorities lie but how we consume our news & what that means when things like this get ignored:
I also write about how little the floods have been covered in national newspapers, and how appalled I am that the Prime Minister has said nothing to the people of Monmouthshire directly. Please read and share. www.thenerve.news/p/storm-clau...
Storm Claudia puts Wales under water – why did these record-breaking floods barely make the news?
On the frontline of a deluge on the Welsh borders, Jude Rogers heard local stories of devastation and heroism – but incredibly the disaster was hardly referred to in Westminster and the national press
www.thenerve.news
November 23, 2025 at 9:01 AM
Can I also just say that this is brilliant reporting by my pal Jude, questioning not only where Westminster's priorities lie but how we consume our news & what that means when things like this get ignored:
As Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s story is dramatised tonight, on the BBC, I am reminded of this piece I wrote about Richard Ratcliffe’s unwavering campaign when she was finally released. I first interviewed Richard in a car park outside the Iranian Embassy in 2017 & this is what followed:
The story of Richard Ratcliffe’s unwavering love for wife Nazanin
Six years, two hunger strikes and a tireless campaign to free his beloved wife from a Tehran prison — as Richard and Nazanin are finally reunited, Kat Lister reflects on a modern love story
www.standard.co.uk
November 23, 2025 at 8:27 AM
As Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s story is dramatised tonight, on the BBC, I am reminded of this piece I wrote about Richard Ratcliffe’s unwavering campaign when she was finally released. I first interviewed Richard in a car park outside the Iranian Embassy in 2017 & this is what followed:
Reposted by Kat Lister
Extraordinary reporting
Influencers made millions pushing ‘wild’ births – now the Free Birth Society is linked to baby deaths around the world
Influencers made millions pushing ‘wild’ births – now the Free Birth Society is linked to baby deaths around the world
A year-long investigation reveals how mothers lost children after being radicalised by uplifting podcast tales of births without midwives or doctors
As Esau Lopez was asphyxiated for the first 17 minutes of his life on Earth, the atmosphere in the room remained serene, even ecstatic. Acoustic music crooned from a speaker in a modest two-bedroom apartment in a suburb of Pennsylvania. “You are a queen,” murmured one of three friends in the room.
Only Esau’s mother, Gabrielle Lopez, felt something was wrong. She was pushing hard, but her son would not be born. “Can you help [him] out?” she asked, as Esau crowned. “Baby is coming,” the friend replied. Four minutes later, Lopez asked again, “Can you grab [him]?” Another friend murmured, “Baby is safe.” Six minutes passed. Again, Lopez asked, “Can you grab [him]?” Continue reading...
www.theguardian.com
November 22, 2025 at 8:27 AM
Extraordinary reporting
The sheer delight of discovering a
"new" author for the first time…I'm not sure how – or why – it's taken me as long as it has but l am so grateful to have found William Maxwell…in an airport WH Smiths no less!
"new" author for the first time…I'm not sure how – or why – it's taken me as long as it has but l am so grateful to have found William Maxwell…in an airport WH Smiths no less!
November 21, 2025 at 5:48 PM
The sheer delight of discovering a
"new" author for the first time…I'm not sure how – or why – it's taken me as long as it has but l am so grateful to have found William Maxwell…in an airport WH Smiths no less!
"new" author for the first time…I'm not sure how – or why – it's taken me as long as it has but l am so grateful to have found William Maxwell…in an airport WH Smiths no less!
$54.7 million. Christ, this makes me sad. I wonder if any of us will see it exhibited again? More than half of Frida Kahlo’s paintings are privately owned. This one, outside of Mexico, I believe. A strange thing to ponder when you consider how irrevocably Kahlo is tied to its people and its history.
Frida Kahlo self-portrait sells for $54.7m to set new auction record for a female artist
The 1940 painting of Kahlo asleep in bed has surpassed the record set by the $44.4m sale of Georgia O’Keeffe’s Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 in 2014
www.theguardian.com
November 21, 2025 at 8:27 AM
$54.7 million. Christ, this makes me sad. I wonder if any of us will see it exhibited again? More than half of Frida Kahlo’s paintings are privately owned. This one, outside of Mexico, I believe. A strange thing to ponder when you consider how irrevocably Kahlo is tied to its people and its history.
An extraordinary night with the extraordinary Yiyun Li. Thank you Folkestone book Festival for having me & Sophie Haydock for curating so thoughtfully. I am left holding Yiyun's words: "there is only now and now and now”…
November 17, 2025 at 9:39 AM
An extraordinary night with the extraordinary Yiyun Li. Thank you Folkestone book Festival for having me & Sophie Haydock for curating so thoughtfully. I am left holding Yiyun's words: "there is only now and now and now”…
I watched Howards End last night – a film I’ve returned to again & again & yet it moved me so much more deeply this time. I suspect it intensifies with age: watching Ruth’s dress trailing in the grass, & Leonard charge through the bluebells with such a sense of loss. But yes, what a masterpiece.
November 14, 2025 at 9:48 AM
I watched Howards End last night – a film I’ve returned to again & again & yet it moved me so much more deeply this time. I suspect it intensifies with age: watching Ruth’s dress trailing in the grass, & Leonard charge through the bluebells with such a sense of loss. But yes, what a masterpiece.
Apropos of nothing, but I'm having one of those writing days where every sentence reads like a random and irrelevant body part in a game of exquisite corpse
November 13, 2025 at 5:22 PM
Apropos of nothing, but I'm having one of those writing days where every sentence reads like a random and irrelevant body part in a game of exquisite corpse
Channel 5 relaunches Play for Today tonight – & I'm really intrigued to see what the do with it. Incidentally I watched one that my dad directed for the 1st time this week (Baby Talk, 1981) – with a young Pauline Quirke no less! – & boy, they really went for it. I hope this new incarnation does, too
November 13, 2025 at 9:33 AM
Channel 5 relaunches Play for Today tonight – & I'm really intrigued to see what the do with it. Incidentally I watched one that my dad directed for the 1st time this week (Baby Talk, 1981) – with a young Pauline Quirke no less! – & boy, they really went for it. I hope this new incarnation does, too
Reposted by Kat Lister
I wrote one of the episodes for the newly relaunched Play For Today, which starts tonight (my episode is on in a couple of weeks). This is an article about that .
www.independent.co.uk/arts-enterta...
www.independent.co.uk/arts-enterta...
Play for Today: The revival hoping to save British TV from a class crisis
Play for Today’s one-off films were a seminal moment in television in the Seventies and Eighties, writes Hannah J Davies. Decades later, Channel 5 is bringing them back, and aiming to diversify small-...
www.independent.co.uk
November 13, 2025 at 8:32 AM
I wrote one of the episodes for the newly relaunched Play For Today, which starts tonight (my episode is on in a couple of weeks). This is an article about that .
www.independent.co.uk/arts-enterta...
www.independent.co.uk/arts-enterta...
"There are soiled sheets, unvoiced fears, missed doses of morphine. The hard truth, in short, about underfunding palliative care is that people who are at their most vulnerable – the dying – suffer more pain, more indignity, less choice & less autonomy than they might have." Please read this piece:
"We would never tolerate a government that chose to defund 70% of neonatal services, gambling that charities would fill the gap. Yet this is exactly the situation for end-of-life care."
Please read my piece on the travesty of NHS palliative care underfunding 🙏
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Please read my piece on the travesty of NHS palliative care underfunding 🙏
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
As a palliative care specialist, I’ve witnessed the human tragedy of our end-of-life care crisis | Rachel Clarke
While the government debates assisted dying, palliative care is an afterthought. And many more people face death without the care and support they need, says Rachel Clarke
www.theguardian.com
November 11, 2025 at 8:06 AM
"There are soiled sheets, unvoiced fears, missed doses of morphine. The hard truth, in short, about underfunding palliative care is that people who are at their most vulnerable – the dying – suffer more pain, more indignity, less choice & less autonomy than they might have." Please read this piece:
I am biased of course, but I am here to tell you that my favourite record by The Clientele has been reissued on vinyl this week & it is a rather beautiful thing: ffm.bio/theviolethour
November 8, 2025 at 4:07 PM
I am biased of course, but I am here to tell you that my favourite record by The Clientele has been reissued on vinyl this week & it is a rather beautiful thing: ffm.bio/theviolethour
Happy Birthday to the one & only Bonnie Raitt, the only interviewee who has ever cried tears of joy – & disbelief – when I told her what her music has meant to me over the years. Genuinely one of the most humble & altruistic people I’ve ever had the privilege to profile:
‘I’m living for the ones who didn’t make it’: Bonnie Raitt on her unquenchable thirst for music
As she wins a lifetime achievement Grammy at 72, the US singer who crossed blues with pop is still determined to support artists who never got their dues
www.theguardian.com
November 8, 2025 at 3:17 PM
Happy Birthday to the one & only Bonnie Raitt, the only interviewee who has ever cried tears of joy – & disbelief – when I told her what her music has meant to me over the years. Genuinely one of the most humble & altruistic people I’ve ever had the privilege to profile:
In just a few weeks I will be in conversation with the extraordinary Yiyun Li about her remarkable book Things in Nature Merely Grow – with thanks to Folkestone Book Festival for inviting me, more info and tickets below:
Yiyun Li: Language After Loss - Creative Folkestone
www.creativefolkestone.org.uk
November 4, 2025 at 2:54 PM
In just a few weeks I will be in conversation with the extraordinary Yiyun Li about her remarkable book Things in Nature Merely Grow – with thanks to Folkestone Book Festival for inviting me, more info and tickets below:
“But I wondered: By making death—such an intimate exchange of life for non-life—so public, were we honoring the dead? Or ourselves? Who granted us the right to the stories of the departed?”
God, I adore Hilton Als, and this is why:
www.newyorker.com/culture/phot...
God, I adore Hilton Als, and this is why:
www.newyorker.com/culture/phot...
November 1, 2025 at 3:54 PM
“But I wondered: By making death—such an intimate exchange of life for non-life—so public, were we honoring the dead? Or ourselves? Who granted us the right to the stories of the departed?”
God, I adore Hilton Als, and this is why:
www.newyorker.com/culture/phot...
God, I adore Hilton Als, and this is why:
www.newyorker.com/culture/phot...
Told my dental surgeon I TOTALLY wanted to keep my wisdom tooth while spangled on IV sedation…and now what do I do with it? Under my pillow for the big bucks?
October 27, 2025 at 8:23 PM
Told my dental surgeon I TOTALLY wanted to keep my wisdom tooth while spangled on IV sedation…and now what do I do with it? Under my pillow for the big bucks?
Thank you to the Betsey Trotwood & Travis Elborough for having me yesterday. What a delightful crowd, what a lovely way to spend a Saturday afternoon…& Street Legal sounded pretty damn good on the record player, too.
October 26, 2025 at 8:06 AM
Thank you to the Betsey Trotwood & Travis Elborough for having me yesterday. What a delightful crowd, what a lovely way to spend a Saturday afternoon…& Street Legal sounded pretty damn good on the record player, too.
Reposted by Kat Lister
'Get rid of the migrants or I'll become a migrant' is quite the argument
October 22, 2025 at 12:59 PM
'Get rid of the migrants or I'll become a migrant' is quite the argument