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

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…

Thursday, 22 October 2020 08:59

The Radical Extension of Reality: Jorge Luis Borges

Written by Jim Aitken

in Fiction

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 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.…

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Sunday, 16 August 2020 07:41

A lesser evil

in Fiction

Written by Chris Norris

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

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Sunday, 02 August 2020 09:09

Hollywood corruption in the McCarthy period: Left of Eden

in Fiction

Written by Paul Simon

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…

Monday, 11 May 2020 09:09

Charles Dickens and working-class literature

Written by Jenny Farrell

in Fiction

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…

Sunday, 19 April 2020 15:38

Robert Tressell's 150th anniversary

Written by Jenny Farrell

in Fiction

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

Friday, 27 March 2020 15:17

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

Written by Fran Lock

in Fiction

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