Christina Patterson

Christina Patterson is a writer and columnist at The Independent. A former director of the Poetry Society, and literary programmer at the Southbank Centre, she writes on culture, society, politics, books, travel and the arts.

Christina Patterson: Cameron: from gimmickry to gravitas

A prime minister should, if he is a man, be pleasant but not sexy, youthful, but not 12. The incumbent, as you'll agree, scores well on all these fronts

Recently by Christina Patterson

Christina Patterson: Believe it or not, this might be the shape of politics to come

Saturday, 14 August 2010

The Saturday Column

Christina Patterson: Why is social housing such a mess?

Wednesday, 11 August 2010

What started as a much-needed escape route from the slums that were, for decades, the working classes' only accommodation option, has become a racket

Christina Patterson: Lessons in living from some (considerably) older women

Saturday, 7 August 2010

The Saturday Column

Christina Patterson: We need to talk about integration

Wednesday, 4 August 2010

Never mind the deficit, multiculturalism is the biggest challenge we face. In a globalised world, what kind of society to be? This is not about race but culture

Christina Patterson: We can try to live without the past but we'll always fail

Saturday, 31 July 2010

The Saturday Column

Christina Patterson: The limits of multi-culturalism

Wednesday, 28 July 2010

When I first moved to Stamford Hill, I didn't realise that goyim were about as welcome in Hasidic Jewish shops as Martin Luther King at a Klu Klux Klan convention

Christina Patterson: Lessons from literature – and YouTube – in immigrant life

Saturday, 24 July 2010

On the night that Obama was elected as President of the United States, I was reminded of the end of Sam Selvon's novel, The Lonely Londoners. Moses, one of the first wave of post-Windrush Jamaicans in London, is standing on the banks of the Thames, wondering "if he should save up his money and go back home". "Under the kiff-kaff laughter," he muses, "behind the ballad and the episode, the what-happening, the summer-is-hearts, he could see a great aimlessness, a great restless, swaying movement that leave you standing in the same spot. As if a forlorn shadow of doom fall on all the spades in the country."

Christina Patterson: Is there room for art in the Big Society?

Wednesday, 21 July 2010

There isn't much philanthropy in Britain. Where it does exist in relation to the arts, it's largely about influence and image - in other words, the glamorous and hip

Christina Patterson: Why I felt sorry for a violent, snivelling, child-abusing thug

Saturday, 17 July 2010

Vulnerability, more than respect, more than admiration, and certainly more than achievement, is one of the qualities in a human being most likely to inspire affection.