How the Cambridge Literary Review is taking on the establishment

Launched as a reaction to the lack of outlets for challenging contemporary writing, a Cambridge-based journal is finding favour in the very places it aims to be the antidote for. One year on from its birth and with the fifth issue soon to be released, the Cambridge Literary Review continues to gain prominence, with a strong write up in the Times Literary Supplement and copies on sale in the Tate Modern bookshop amongst others. But its editors believe that the CLR's clean design and tactile pages host some of the most subtle and stimulating writing currently published by any literary journal in the UK. "There is no other journal in Britain with a high intellectual profile whose poetry matches the quality of its essays," states Lydia Wilson, one of the founders of the CLR; "we fill a gap in the market because of the type of writing we publish, which is not afraid of complexity and tackling difficult subjects." Lydia, a Research Fellow in the History and Philosophy of Science Department, started the Review with PhD student Boris Jardine in September 2009, using a grant from the University's 800th Anniversary fund to get the first issue off the ground. Since then the journal has been making a name for itself, with a recent article in the Times Literary Supplement praising the CLR's defiant reclaiming of the 'difficult' label that has been associated with Cambridge's literary output since the late 1960s. It was during this period that a loose collective of poets known as the 'Cambridge school' emerged in the city, some of whom have new work featured in the Review's first few editions.