Catherine Nixey

As culture correspondent for The Economist, Catherine Nixey’s writing is compelling, enjoyable and unfailingly original. Her reviews go further than simply critiquing new work, offering a broader analysis and cultural commentary of trends in the arts. 

Her piece on poetry takes a look at the common complaint that poetry doesn’t rhyme any more, and backs it up with striking numerical analysis (in 1900, 80% of poems contained rhyme; today, only around 25% do). 

A review of the late Pope Francis’s autobiography also offers an incisive and insightful exploration of trends in autobiographical writing over recent years, noting: “One reason autobiography is so hard is that people assume it is easy: everyone thinks he is an expert about his own life.”

A piece on Dan Brown’s latest novel Secret of Secrets is funny and gently teasing, managing to avoid slipping into sneering or patronising Brown and his millions of fans (“Critics will lay into this book. But it romps along and, in truth, its exposition is part of its appeal”). Going further than a standard review, Nixey examines how Secret of Secrets fits in with Brown’s oeuvre, and with the wider changes in the cultural landscape since he first started writing. 

Judges’ comments: “What a fantastic writer – a glorious sense of timing and an exquisite turn of phrase.”