Tim Adams

Tim Adams is a lead feature writer at the Observer, contributing features, interviews, reviews and comment. Tim is a sensitive and versatile interviewer, always gaining the trust of the people he meets, and subtly revealing their true character. His interviews are honest, reflective and beautifully written.

He says:

Of the interviews I did this year, these three stood out in different ways. It’s always interesting to return to a favourite interviewee after a number of years; my last encounter with Peter Ackroyd for the Observer, 25 years ago, had left the famously bibulous author passed out drunk on the cobbles of a central London square; sober this time, we picked up where we left off. The other two submitted pieces, interviews with Lucian Freud’s novelist daughter Rose Boyt, who had written a raw memoir of her growing up, and with Charles Spencer, who had published an expose of his trauma at boarding school, involved discussing childhood abuse, with tact and empathy. In both cases, the challenge was to confront some hard subject matter without sensationalising it.