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

Sunday, 08 November 2020 22:01

From the Plough to the Stars

Written by Jenny Farrell

in Fiction

Jenny Farrell introduces From the Plough to the Stars: An Anthology of Working People’s Prose from Contemporary Ireland “The cooks, the cleaners, the porters: unsung heroes on the frontline” cried an Irish newspaper headline in early May 2020. During the pandemic it has become clear that whatever else fails, a…

Wednesday, 28 October 2020 14:46

The wrath and love of the oppressed: The Book of Echoes by Rosanna Amaka

Written by Razia Parveen

in Fiction

Razia Parveen reviews The Book of Echoes by Rosanna Amaka The Book of Echoes by Rosanna Amaka is a powerful and politically potent narrative which subtly weaves the past into the present. It is a novel that shows the reader the inhumanity of Africans kidnapped and forced into slavery and…

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Thursday, 22 October 2020 08:59

The Radical Extension of Reality: Jorge Luis Borges

in Fiction

Written by Jim Aitken

Jim Aitken unearths the radical and progressive meanings in Borges' writings It was his fellow Argentinian writer and, like his mentor, a former Director of the National Library of Argentina, Alberto Manguel, who told us in Packing My Library (2018) that Borges, while trapped in Geneva during the Second World…

the Golem Carpentier Peron Labyrinths Neruda

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Friday, 02 October 2020 10:54

The Martyr: the last of Liam O’Flaherty’s banned novels to see the light in Ireland

in Fiction

Written by Jenny Farrell

Jenny Farrell introduce Liam O’Flaherty's The Martyr, Nuascéalta 2020. Liam O’Flaherty’s banned novel The Martyr has just been republished by Nuascéalta, eighty-seven years since its first and only edition in 1933. With this sensational republication of The Martyr, Nuascéalta publishers complete their epic task of restoring the remaining three major…

Irish Civil War Terence Mac Sweeney

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Tuesday, 15 September 2020 09:04

All Quiet on the Western Front

in Fiction

Written by Jenny Farrell

Jenny Farrell introduces the famous anti-war book, as we near the 50th anniversary of Erich Maria Remarque's death. Image by Photofest World War I was termed the war that would end all wars, so great was the horror of this new, diabolical stage of industrial annihilation. We know now that…

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Saturday, 22 August 2020 19:26

'History Lite': Hilary Mantel's Cromwell trilogy

in Fiction

Written by John Green

John Green reviews Hilary Mantel’s trilogy of historical novels. The above image is Hans Holbein's 1530s portrait of Thomas Cromwell Hilary Mantel’s trilogy on the life of Henry VIII’s secretary, Thomas Cromwell (1485 –1540), has been widely praised, and the first two volumes each won the Booker Prize for fiction.…

Sunday, 16 August 2020 07:41

A lesser evil

Written by Chris Norris

in Fiction

13th October 2040 Dear Richard, I know it must be weird and more than slightly disturbing to receive a ‘letter from beyond the grave’, but I trust you won’t be seriously spooked by it, not after all those years as a hospital doctor like me and some of the strange,…

Covid19 Boris Johnson

Tuesday, 04 August 2020 09:23

Giovanni Boccaccio, writing at a time of plague

Written by Jenny Farrell

in Fiction

Jenny Farrell gives the historical background to Boccaccio's work The Black Plague was the most devastating pandemic ever recorded, resulting in the deaths of between 75-125 million people. It peaked in Europe between 1347 and 1351, having come on Italian merchant ships from Asia via the Silk Road. In fact,…

Venice Black Death Covid19 Chaucer

Sunday, 02 August 2020 09:09

Hollywood corruption in the McCarthy period: Left of Eden

Written by Paul Simon

in Fiction

Paul Simon reviews Dennis Broe's new novel Author Dennis Broe is an international expert on film noir and an acclaimed socialist writer, as his dialectical and highly readable contributions to this website and his reviews for the Morning Star evidence. In his first novel Left of Eden, his expansive knowledge…

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…