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

Monday, 06 July 2020 07:19

The Gadfly: An Irishwoman’s novel about revolutionaries

Written by Jenny Farrell

in Fiction

Jenny Farrell remembers Ethel Voynich, who died 60 years ago this month, and who wrote The Gadfly – An Irishwoman’s novel about revolutionaries Liam Mellows read this novel of revolution while awaiting his execution, along with the other condemned and his comrades. He had been imprisoned by the Irish Free…

Tuesday, 19 May 2020 07:55

The Gael becomes Irish: the long-term consequences of colonisation

Written by Jenny Farrell

in Fiction

Jenny Farrell reviews Tomás Mac Síomóin's The Gael Becomes Irish: An Unfinished Odyssey, Nuascéalta, 2020. “The Gael Becomes Irish”is Tomás Mac Síomóin’s latest publication, and it continues his epic effort to detail the almost unfathomable effect that colonisation has had on the Irish psyche and culture. By doing so, he…

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Monday, 11 May 2020 09:09

Charles Dickens and working-class literature

in Fiction

Written by Jenny Farrell

Jenny Farrell discusses Charles Dickens, the first English novelist to put ordinary people at the heart of the story This month marks the 150th anniversary of the death of Charles Dickens, who was born in 1812, during the Napoleonic Wars. Although his authorial perspective was always rooted in the petty-bourgeois…

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Sunday, 19 April 2020 15:38

Robert Tressell's 150th anniversary

in Fiction

Written by Jenny Farrell

Robert Tressell was born 150 years ago, on 17 April 1870 - see here

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Friday, 27 March 2020 15:17

'Most good art is queer': Fran Lock interviews Golnoosh Nour

in Fiction

Written by Fran Lock

Fran Lock interviews Dr Golnoosh Nour, who was born in Tehran, about her new book, The Ministry of Guidance and Other Stories. Her debut poetry collection Sorrows of the Sun was published in 2017, and she teaches at Birkbeck College and the University of Bedfordshire. FL: Thank you so much…

Audre Lord Keith Jarrett Joelle Taylor Iris Murdoch Saleem Haddad

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Tuesday, 12 November 2019 17:20

From the dystopian chaos of the free market to the solidarity of co-operative communism: the Maddaddam trilogy

in Fiction

Written by Jenny Farrell

Jenny Farrell discusses Margaret Atwood’s Maddaddam trilogy Margaret Atwood, who turns 80 in November 2019, has written several novels that explore dystopian situations or circumstances where people are subjected to control and violence. Arguably, the most famous of these is The Handmaid’s Tale (1985). However, what distinguishes Atwood’s work is…

Margaret Atwood

Tuesday, 03 September 2019 11:04

Finnegans Wake, fascism, and the essential unity of the human race

Written by Sean Ledwith

in Fiction

Sean Ledwith shows how Finnegans Wake, far from being an incomprehensible waste of Joyce's genius, is an anti-fascist masterwork, uniting and celebrating the wholeness, richness and vibrancy of human culture 80 years ago, as the clouds of war darkened over Europe, one of the most notoriously baffling books of all…

James Joyce Ulysses

Monday, 26 August 2019 13:35

The Cave of Gold

Written by David Betteridge

in Fiction

David Betteridge re-tells an old tale, inspired by John Berger, Timothy Neat, and Margaret Bennett, with drawings by Bob Starrett The Cave of Gold by David Betteridge On 23rd February, 2017, in Edinburgh, an event was held by the Royal Scottish Academy, in commemoration of an honorary member who had…

John Berger

Monday, 05 August 2019 15:40

Gone Underground: imagining revolution in Britain

Written by Phil Brett

in Fiction

Phil Brett has just published Gone Underground, the second of his Pete Kalder novels. It’s a crime novel, set in a future revolutionary Britain, and here he explains how he got the idea. It was reading a number of the Lew Archer novels by Ross Macdonald which inspired me to…

Tuesday, 09 July 2019 17:05

Poetic Justice

Written by Moya Roddy

in Fiction

Poetic Justice by Moya Roddy Fuckin’ mad, Stacey thinks, eyeing the crowd milling outside the theatre. Imagine goin’ to hear poetry this hour of the morning. Across the entrance of the building a large banner blazes: Cuirt International Festival of Poetry and Literature. Stacy wonders what ‘Cuirt’ means? Something to…