An Education

Sarah Thornton, the author wronged

Lynn Barber said in June 2009 about ‘An Education’ that tells of her fling with an older man when she was 16:

“Oh, it's a bad moment and it's going to be bad whatever happens”.

Not bad enough, apparently. Recently she wrote in The Telegraph:

“Sarah Thornton is a decorative Canadian with a BA in art history and a PhD in sociology and a seemingly limitless capacity to write pompous nonsense”.

Sarah didn’t like that much and The Telegraph was condemned to pay £65,000 damages to the photogenic author of Seven Days in the Art World.

The Judge sentencing The Telegraph to pay said:

"a reviewer is entitled to be spiteful as long as she is honest"

The difference between honest and not-honest in this case seems to be that Barber forgot the fact that Thornton had interviewed her and said so in her review.