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, 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

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Monday, 05 August 2019 15:40

Gone Underground: imagining revolution in Britain

in Fiction

Written by Phil Brett

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…

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Tuesday, 09 July 2019 17:05

Poetic Justice

in Fiction

Written by Moya Roddy

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…

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Tuesday, 25 June 2019 14:49

Solidarity against everyday exploitation: Stephen King's IT

in Fiction

Written by Tony McKenna

Tony McKenna looks back at Stephen King's IT Some years ago, a study was carried out into the fears of young children in the night. Just before the lights were turned off and the children were ready for sleep they were each asked where they thought the monster was. The…

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Friday, 31 May 2019 15:40

Secrets, crimes and the schooling of the ruling class: how British boarding school stories betrayed their audience

in Fiction

Written by Nicholas Tucker

Nicholas Tucker asks why authors of children's stories about boarding schools chose to concentrate on escapist fantasy, rather than telling the truth Asked by a magazine in 1956 what he considered the chief characteristics of children’s literature, the veteran French writer Marcel Aymé replied ‘La bêtise, le mensonge, l’hypocrisie.’ This…

Charles Dickens Rudyard Kipling Billy Bunter CSLewis

Tuesday, 07 May 2019 09:28

'Heed the truth/Spoken by the youth!' Stories of political activism by young people at the Battle of Cable Street

Written by Kim Reynolds

in Fiction

As young people take to the streets to protest about climate change, Kim Reynolds discusses the way political activism by young people at the Battle of Cable Street has been portrayed in radical children's literature, and urges us to 'heed the truth/Spoken by the youth' What has come to be…

Radical children's literature Mosley Climate change gun control

Saturday, 20 April 2019 20:24

The noir novel: crime and corruption at the heart of the capitalist world

Written by Dennis Broe

in Fiction

Dennis Broe reports from the Quais du Polar conference in Lyon, and discusses some examples of noir novels which depict and criticise the environmental depredation and social inequalities which lie at the heart of the modern capitalist world Noir fiction is distinguished from simple crime fiction by adding a darker…

Stieg Larsson Saviano

Traven (alias Ret Marut, born Otto Feige), police photo, London 1923

Sunday, 31 March 2019 11:13

Exposing the exploitative nature of capitalism: the life and writings of B. Traven

Written by Jenny Farrell

in Fiction

Jenny Farrell introduces B. Traven, a writer who stood consistently and unreservedly on the side of the working class and the oppressed. Like Robert Tressell, his novels and writings relentlessly expose and protest the exploitative nature of the capitalist system. The writer Otto Feige, alias B. Traven, died fifty years…

the death ship treasure of the sierra madre workingclass writers

Tuesday, 08 January 2019 19:32

Sugar Plum

Written by Jan Woolf

in Fiction

Sugar Plum by Jan Woolf A winter’s day in 2008, in Dalston, London 6am Zeina wakes, and, remembering, keeps her body as still as she can. She lifts her hand to snap on the bedside light, gently turning her head towards the photograph in the thin green frame. There they…

Marx Memorial Library