British universities are losing out as authors are selling their archives to US institutions

British universities are losing out as big bucks are leading authors to sell their archives to US institutions The novelist Jim Crace looks remarkably chipper for a man of 62 who has just travelled through several time zones on his way home from California. Back on terra firma, he has immediately mowed the lawn - an obsession inherited from his groundsman father - and is now enjoying the midday sun in his beloved garden in Birmingham. It's difficult to imagine him ever being parted for too long from this delightfully verdant corner of urban England. Yet he recently waved goodbye forever to something even more deeply rooted in the personality of a writer with at least four literary awards to his name. His archive has travelled in the other direction, across the Atlantic to America. For a six-figure sum (in pounds, not... [read full story]