David F. McAllister (b. 92) is a writer and editor based in London.

Selected writing:

i. Essays


Multiple lives, one John Akomfrah
On forty years of filming difference

What Annie Ernaux owes to memory
On a Nobel prize winner

Picasso’s indefinable legacy
On legacies and bad behaviour

Our land
On the way things have always been



ii. Reviews & criticism

Troll of the tropics
On Mário de Andrade

Reasons to linger
On Aidan Koch’s Spiral & Other Stories

Painting the Klan
On Tate Modern’s Philip Guston


Glasgow kisses

On Douglas Stuart’s Young Mungo


Scots without Scotland
On Murray Pittock’s Scotland: The Global History


Francis Bacon looks at animals
On Francis Bacon: Man and Beast




iii. Interviews


The BBC and CNN are very biased
Ai Weiwei


The imagination is a really generous space

Michael Rakowitz


Conservatives must avoid seeming obsessed with money

Maurice Saatchi


Work is just a flimsy excuse to meet people

Cornelia Parker

The biggest challenge was to make the audience feel their complicity
Richard Mosse




iv. Columns


The people’s Overground
On what’s in a name


For men, online dating is a tall order
On average height

Care about social mobility? Don’t send your kids to Oxbridge

On networks of privilege