Hi,
I’m Sophie McBain, an award-winning freelance writer based in Boston. I write longform narrative nonfiction, profiles, book reviews and essays for the Guardian, the Observer, the Times, New Statesman magazine and others.
I love telling true stories about people and big ideas, the ideas that shape our lives and how we see the world. This website showcases some of my recent work.
Latest Work
- INTERVIEW: ‘One of the most profound encounters of my life’: could existential therapist Emmy van Deurzen change the way you think? (The Guardian) 2026
- REVIEW: Original Sin by Kathryn Paige Harden (The Guardian) 2026
- INTERVIEW: ‘My ideas are a little revolutionary’: ecologist Suzanne Simard on intelligent forests, the climate and her critics (The Guardian) 2026
- INTERVIEW: ‘How do you really tell the truth about this moment?’: George Saunders on ghosts, mortality and Trump’s America (The Guardian) 2026
- REVIEW: Don’t burn anyone at the stake today (The Guardian) 2025
- REVIEW: Crick: A mind in motion (The Guardian) 2025
- LONG READ: “Are we living in the golden age of stupidity?” (The Guardian) 2025
- INTERVIEW: “I’m going to write about all of it” author Chris Kraus on sex, drugs and I love Dick 2025
- INTERVIEW: Kiran Desai: “I never thought it would happen in the US” (The Guardian) 2025
- REVIEW: Loves Labour (The Guardian) 2025
- REVIEW: The currency of trauma (The Observer) 2025
- REVIEW: The case for having more children (The Observer) 2025
- LONG READ: The man in seat 11A and our obsession with sole survivors (The Observer) 2025
- ESSAY: The Big Idea: Should we embrace boredom (The Guardian) 2025
- INTERVIEW: ‘My sadness is not a burden’: author Yiyun Li on the suicide of both her sons (The Guardian) 2025
- INTERVIEW: Novelist Katie Kitamura: ‘As Trump tries to take away everything I love, it’s never been clearer that writing matters’ (The Guardian) 2025
- REVIEW: Alive by Gabriel Weston, A Revelatory Study of the Body (The Guardian) 2025
- REVIEW: The Cyclical History of Abortion Rights (New Statesman) 2025
- BROADCAST: Humans: A Monstrous History – in conversation with Surekha Davies for the Intelligence Squared podcast 2025
- REVIEW: The Woman who Made the Rape Kit (New Statesman) 2025
- INTERVIEW: Author Tony Tulathimutte: ‘The great millennial theme? Resentment’ (The Guardian) 2025
- REVIEW: Lessons from the Afterlife (New Statesman) 2025
- ESSAY: Smartphones don’t suck. People do (New Statesman) 2024
- LONG READ: Look they’re getting skin! Are we right to save the world’s smallest babies (The Guardian) 2024
- INTERVIEW: We’ve become distrustful of each other’: Braiding Sweetgrass author Robin Wall Kimmerer on Trump, rural America and resistance (The Guardian) 2024