Fiction

Don Quixote is the best book out there on political theory, followed by Hamlet and Macbeth. There is no better way to understand the tragedy and the comedy of the Mexican political system than Hamlet, Macbeth and Don Quixote. They're much better than any column of political analysis.

Subcomandante Marcos

Tuesday, 26 April 2016 13:43

Short story: Cilla and Ray got lucky

Written by Ted Parry

in Fiction

1. I mean, they probably embellished it a bit, but you would, wouldn’t you? Years selling pot round London. Real London, not just a yuppie movie set. Wideboy kiddie Ray nicking a Lambretta in Brighton off a mod who’d dropped too many pills, and riding it to London to…

Wednesday, 03 February 2016 15:33

Short Story: The Cage

Written by Chris Jury

in Fiction

When the man awoke he was surprised to find himself in a small cage. It was about eight feet square and had four walls and a roof all made of metal bars about four inches apart. There was a wooden floor and a full height gate made of the same…

Cage

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Monday, 01 February 2016 15:17

Book Review: The Noise of Time

in Fiction

Written by Paul Simon

Paul Simon reviews The Noise of Time, by Julian Barnes. A Pravda editorial early in 1936, possibly written by Stalin himself and more probably merely with his knowledge, is the hinge upon which Julian Barnes’s imaginings of Dmitri Shostakovich’s interior life turns. In this ruthless appropriation of the great Soviet composer for his own…

Barnes Shostakovich

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Friday, 29 January 2016 10:43

Book Review: Comrades Come Rally

in Fiction

Written by Ian Birchall

Ian Birchall reviews Phil Brett's novel, Comrades Come Rally, which imagines the development of a revolutionary situation in Britain. Three centuries ago Voltaire lamented that for every one person who read the philosopher Locke, there were a hundred reading Oriental romances. Voltaire’s response was to write Candide, an adventure story…

revolution Crime fiction

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Wednesday, 27 January 2016 18:51

Keep Calm and Nostalgic

in Fiction

Written by Ross Bradshaw

Ross Bradshaw keeps calm while reviewing Owen Hatherley's latest book of essays on nostalgia. This set of essays starts with the well-known image, in Gill Sans type, with a crown at the top and plain lettering saying KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON. This annoying slogan, Hatherley found, seemed to follow…

Nostalgia Lubetkin Housing

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Friday, 22 January 2016 23:33

Murder, Mavericks and Marxism

in Fiction

Written by Phil Brett

Phil Brett looks analyses crime fiction from a socialist perspective. You don’t need to be a professor of English to know that crime fiction is very popular at the moment. Look at the W.H Smith top sellers for 2015 and you’ll find eleven out of the twenty are crime/thriller novels;…

Crime fiction

Tuesday, 12 January 2016 18:53

Tyneside Story

Written by Pat McGee

in Fiction

They were gathered together in the rehearsal room - actors, directors, backstage workers for an out of the ordinary meeting. Alf Simpson was there, in his 40s now, not leading man material, but he had been with the People's Theatre for ten years or more. He had a moustache -…

Tyneside

Wednesday, 23 December 2015 19:26

Short Story: Ark of Salvation

Written by Muhanned Mohamed Khorshid

in Fiction

In my old smelly socks, I place personal papers and some money notes wrapped in remnants of plastic bag to avoid its destruction from seawater. The night gets dark when the smuggler informs us that the trafficking ark is near the shore and that tonight we have to be careful…

ark refugees

Monday, 14 December 2015 21:06

Content, Form and Universality

Written by Paul Simon

in Fiction

Paul Simon introduces some book reviews. Lenin was clear as to the purpose of literature. He saw it as the cogs and wheels of the revolutionary cause. Dismissing bourgeois concepts of the ‘’absolute freedom’’ of the writer, literature only has value to the socialist when it is directly connected to…

Lenin Lunacharsky marxist literary criticism

Thursday, 10 December 2015 23:00

Short Story: 2019

Written by Gerry Rowe

in Fiction

“When did you last eat?” The woman’s voice was kindly yet matter-of-fact. The calm way her eyes rose from the paperwork to meet his suggested the case held no surprises for her. “The day before yesterday.” William Stokes invested the reply with the measured control, all self-pity suppressed, he’d cultivated…

foodbank sanctions cab