Out now: Tony White’s latest novel

Rex King is back! Phantom at the Feast by Tony White is out now. It’s the long-awaited follow-up to the critically acclaimed The Fountain in the Forest (2018).

We’re all thrilled by the two early reviews:

Here’s something com­pletely dif­fer­ent. White’s epic police thriller sports a com­plex and engross­ing plot, revolving around the many secrets held by former under­cover cop Rex King, and par­tic­u­larly his involve­ment in the Miners’ Strike, all com­plic­ated by the appear­ance of a daugh­ter he never knew he had. White com­bines all this, though, with a play­ful love of digres­sion. Each chapter includes all the solu­tions to a quick cross­word, along with a cor­nu­copia of fas­cin­at­ing trivia. — The Best New Fiction, Mail on Sunday

This is not your average thriller, this is your exceptional experimental crime novel. For Tony White to write a sequel to The Fountain in the Forest, to merge the avant-garde with the whodunnit . . . is to rub out much of what has gone before in crime fiction. The past haunts the book, the London of Chris Petit’s Robinson or the multi-layered, mythic ruins of Michael Moorcock’s Mother London, or the time-shifting echoes of Iain Sinclair’s White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings.Phantom at the Feast – like London – is built on top of its own ghosts . . . Like all great crime novels, the truth is not a revelation, it is a gradual calcification of options and the sovereignty of facticity. Phantom at the Feast is a site of resistance combatting the dystopian horizon of the AI literary industry . . . Against this algorithmic flattening, the novel – and this novel in particular – stands as a site of stubborn, human friction. — 3am Magazine

I hope you enjoy it!

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Literature Live, Monday 12 October

Join us for Literature Live on Resonance FM, Monday 12 October at 8:00 pm.

Literature Live broadcasts at 8:00 pm on the second Monday of each month.

Here’s the blurb: London author Tony White presents readings and chat with some of the best novelists and short story writers around, in a monthly programme focusing on live literature with the emphasis on authors reading from and discussing their fiction live on the air.

My guests this month are the novelists Jude Cook and – live from Birmingham – the Booker-shortlisted Luke Kennard. Don’t miss!

Jude Cook is the author of the novels Byron Easy (2013), Jacob’s Advice (2020) and Time Being (2026). He reviews fiction for The Guardian, The Spectator, Literary Review, and the TLS, and his short stories and essays have appeared in The Moth, Tamarind, Confingo, The Tangerine and elsewhere. In 2025 Jude was a judge for the Republic of Consciousness Prize for small presses (now the Queen Mary Small Press Fiction Prize. In the same year, he launched a new press, Conduit Books. He holds a PhD in the Contemporary Novel from Kent Canterbury University and is an Associate Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Westminster. He lives in London.

Luke Kennard is an award-winning poet and novelist. His 5th collection, Cain, was shortlisted for the International Dylan Thomas Prize in 2017 and described by Alan Hollinghurst as ‘the cleverest and funniest thing I’ve read this year’. Notes on the Sonnets, an anarchic response to Shakespeare’s sonnets, won the Forward prize for Best Poetry Collection in 2021. He is a professor of creative writing and literature at the University of Birmingham. His third novel Black Bag has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2026.

Show repeats 10:00 am, Tuesday 13 October 2026.

Tony White (L) with September’s guests on Literature Live, Georgina Starr and David Henningham

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‘I couldn’t put it down. It’s a marvel.’

Thrilled to read these words about my new novel Phantom at the Feast from Philip Terry, editor of The Penguin Book of Oulipo, and translator (ZOMG!) of Raymond Queneau and Georges Perec among others — wow!

Here’s the text in full:

Phantom at the Feast . . . I couldn’t put it down. It’s a marvel, and would make a great TV series. The Oulipian machinery I loved, of course, but all worn so lightly while being intricately embedded in the structure and narrative. The way the complex strands of the narrative come together, the to-ing and fro-ing of time scales – so difficult to pull off but handled with such panache – make for a rollercoaster read. And I loved recognising so many places here that I know well, from Dedham and Essex, to Leeds (I can’t get enough of that Clash story), Sheffield, Plymouth, the Côte d’Azur, parts of London, and Dungeness, all of which add vibrant textures and contrasting landscapes with their associated moods to the work. And it reminds us of the political importance and complex repercussions of the era in which it is set, giving us something of an unwritten history — a great book!

Philip Terry, editor The Penguin Book of Oulipo

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Modern writing life #1

It’s amazing how quickly we’ve got used to doing online events and meetings etc.

Twenty or more years ago, in late 2005, a tiny gallery called Ozone (O3one?) in Belgrade started using Skype to put on live international poetry readings: the poet Ana Seferović was there! Others around the world may have discovered the public and cultural potential of ‘video conferencing’ to the world of books, to writers and readers, around that time too, but O3one were certainly the first I was aware of using Skype in that way.

Now it’s totally normal.

In case you were wondering, here’s how it looks from my side: the standard set-up for an online gig.

This was the ‘venue’ for POST MODERN last night. POST MODERN was an online books event featuring authors who have worked or do work for the Post Office, including me, Kevin Boniface, Susanna Crossman and Paul Kavanagh. In attendance were writers and readers from all over the UK, from the Republic of Ireland, from France, Mexico and the USA.

Great fun – thanks, all!

My contribution, after establishing my ‘Ex-Facteur’ bona fides, was to do a short reading from Phantom at the Feast, out now from No Exit Press. It was an opportunity to try out a short reading I’d not given in public before but which I’m thinking of performing on the November episode of Literature Live, my monthly books programme on Resonance 104.4fm, so wanted to try out. (I don’t do a reading on every show, just occasionally!)

FYI Literature Live always goes out from 8:00–9:00pm on the second Monday of the month. You can listen live at 104.4fm in London, online, or via the Radioplayer app. The show repeats the following morning at 10:00am.

Listen again to previous episodes on Literature Live’s dedicated page on this website…

Watch this space for news of October’s guests on Literature Live —it’s going to be a good one!

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Philip Terry interviewed for Review 31

Sign on Essex University’s Colchester campus, 6 March 2026. Photo: Tony White

The Spring Equinox 2026 is a sunny, breezy day on the Colchester Campus of Essex University, and the flag rope is rattling against the flagpole on the roof of the Albert Sloman Library. The author, translator and teacher Philip Terry and I find ourselves the sole occupants in an otherwise empty corridor off Essex University’s ‘Square 4’ — one of a series of more or less Brutalist pedestrian precincts daisy-chained up the hill on the university’s leafy Colchester campus. I’ve been visiting the university one day a week for the past few months to teach a couple of Creative Writing modules while a member of staff — the author Holly Pester — is away. Knowing we’d both be here, I’d suggested that perhaps we should record a quick interview. ‘Sure,’ says Philip, as we chat variously about the recent death of translator and Georges Perec biographer David Bellos, about the politician Enoch Powell once visiting the Essex University campus to read his poetry (Philip has unearthed a press clipping from a local newspaper), and about a divinatory quality in the writings of Italo Calvino.

I’m delighted to have interviewed the author, translator and Oulipo expert Philip Terry when our paths crossed at the University of Essex back in the spring. My interview – ‘Writing on the Verge of Prophecy’ —is today published by the great online literary journal Review31.

It was a fascinating conversaation, touching on translation, Oulipo, and Terry’s translations of Oulipian texts – enjoy!

Read Tony White ‘Writing on the Verge of Prophecy: an interview with Philip Terry’ on Review 31 here…

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Latest Literature Live

It was a great pleasure to welcome two artists-cum-novelists to Literature Live for readings and chat yesterday: Georgina Starr and David Henningham (R). David was reading from and discussing his debut novel Foulness (Small Fortune Press), and Georgina was reading from and discussing her debut novel The Discreet Dash (Joan Publishing).

It was a real humdinger of a show!

Photo by our producer Lorena Shapiro — thanks Lorena!

The show is repeated 10:00am on Resonance today, Tuesday 15 September, and you can listen again on the Resonance Mixcloud, or on my dedicated page for Literature Live right here…

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Where I’m calling from*

Thanks to Malcolm Paul for interviewing me for the legendary International Times. I was reminded of our discussion while at the National Gallery the other day, thinking about the significance to me of this “ornate gazebo” and what it represents: the raised dais and the portico with its commanding view of Trafalgar Square, which used to be the main entrance to the gallery and accessible from street level.

Like the headline says!

Here’s what I told Malcolm:

I was at the so-called Poll Tax Riot in Trafalgar Square on 31 March 1990. But I wasn’t in the middle of the square, in the melée, I was watching from the raised dais beneath the portico on the front of the National Gallery; with this struggle playing out in front of me, and all the history of power and its representation in the gallery behind me. But isn’t that kind of like the position of the novelist? Here I am in this privileged spot, this ornate gazebo, sandwiched between the historical struggle and the institutions of power, watching police vans being reversed at speed into the crowd, police horse charges, the crowd scattering, useless fusillades of sticks that have become detached from their placards… Just that now, the ornate gazebo I’m watching from isn’t the portico of the National Gallery, it’s ‘the novel’.

(*with apologies to Raymond Carver.)

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Phantoms in-stock and face-out at Waterstones Piccadilly

Super exciting to see copies of Phantom at the Feast *face out* in Waterstones Piccadilly, if any London friends or visitors are wondering where to pick up a copy.

Information correct at time of writing, of course. But I must say that Chris Dorley-Brown’s photography and Mecob Design’s typography are looking very handsome there. I’m very lucky to have such a beautiful cover — thanks, all.

Incidentally, fact fans, the former Simpson’s now Waterstones building’s architect Joseph Emberton (1889-1956) also designed Turnour House in Whitechapel/Shadwell (a social housing block of a pioneering concrete construction) where I used to live in one of the first-floor flats, and where I wrote my novel Foxy-T.

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Talks and events, etc.

Photo Matt Thorne

If you’d like to get book news from me, as well as invites to my book launches and special events like this one at Senate House, London recently, where I was talking about my new novel Phantom at the Feast (No Exit Press) with Will Montgomery of Royal Holloway University of London — it’s easy! and you can unsubscribe any time🫡🙏✊

Sign up for invites here…

Equally, if you’d like to invite me to come and give a talk or do an event about Phantom at the Feast or my novels in general at your institution or as part of e.g. your visiting writers’ programme, just get in touch! I’ve given dozens of talks at universities and colleges including King’s College London, Westminster, UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies, Brunel University London, University of Northumbria, American University at Sharjah, Royal College of Art, Bath Spa, Sheffield Hallam, University of the Arts London, The Slade, Royal Holloway, Birkbeck, Macquarie University Sydney, University of Western Australia, Victoria School of the Arts, etc. etc. and I’m always happy to hear from you. Bookings for Phantom at the Feast go through my publisher No Exit Press at Bedford Square Publishers.

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View past events on my events and bookings page…