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

Thursday, 20 April 2017 10:23

Keep Your Head Down, Henry

Written by Jon Tait

in Fiction

Keep Your Head Down, Henry A Flash novella by Jon Tait A Red Fox Ah was sitting on the ootdoor netty smoking a Woodbine in me cloth cap when ah hord something scratching aboot among the bins. Whey, ah just gan oot to get away from the noise of…

Saturday, 28 January 2017 18:41

Trouble In Store

Written by Dermot Foster

in Fiction

When we see rough sleepers on our city streets we feel instinctively that something urgently needs to be done. Yet how far can our compassion stretch? What motivates some individuals to take action? How does it feel to be on the receiving end of compassion? This short story by Dermot…

Homelessness

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Monday, 12 December 2016 15:09

End of Thrones

in Fiction

Written by Tony McKenna

Tony McKenna argues that the historical necessity embedded in the story and characters of Game of Thrones means that there is only one way it can end. Winter is coming, for Game of Thrones is now approaching its denouement with the penultimate series scheduled for next year and the final one…

Game of Thrones George RR Martin

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Saturday, 29 October 2016 15:24

The Handsworth Times

in Fiction

Written by Paul Simon

Paul Simon reviews a novel set in 1980s Handsworth, at the time of the riots. This novel by Sharon Duggal of life in early-1980s working-class Birmingham during the time of inner-city rioting is defined by the greater and lesser griefs of the Agarwal family.Through their voices, the wonderful cussedness of…

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Tuesday, 11 October 2016 14:46

Animal Farm: a powerfully written allegory but an untruthful, gender-blind analysis

in Fiction

Written by Mary Vincent

Following her appearance on the In Our Time radio programme discussing Orwell's Animal Farm, Professor Mary Vincent reflects on its powerfully written but fundamentally untruthful and simplistic analysis of Soviet Russia, based on Orwell's mistaken interpretation of the Spanish Civil War and his blindness to gender issues. When I picked…

George Orwell Animal Farm In Our Time Spanish Civil War

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Tuesday, 11 October 2016 14:43

Communism in the gunsights

in Fiction

Written by Graham Stevenson

Graham Stevenson reviews the recent In Our Time radio programme about George Orwell's Animal Farm. Melvyn Bragg's discursive radio series, In Our Time, recently considered Orwell's Animal Farm with comment from Steven Connor, Grace 2 Professor of English at the University of Cambridge, Mary Vincent, Professor of Modern European History…

George Orwell Animal Farm In Our Time Spanish Civil War

Wednesday, 31 August 2016 09:38

The child colonisers: fanfiction and young people’s reading power

Written by Lucy Pearson

in Fiction

Dr. Lucy Pearson explores the radical potential of fanfiction for young readers and other marginalised groups, especially in a media environment which is still focused on the needs and desires of men. Children’s books are not written by children. At least, not usually: a glance at the children’s bestseller lists…

children's literature fanfiction

Sunday, 19 June 2016 14:43

Reactionaries and Revolutionaries: Classical Fairy Tales and Class

Written by Anne Duggan

in Fiction

Professor Anne Duggan explores the history of classical fairy tales and their double-sided relationship with class, whereby they both 'evade and compensate for a dire social reality', and outlines some reconceptions of fairy tales which can work as 'builders of communism'. Beginning in the 1980s with the seminal studies of…

fairytales Class cinderella puss in boots pied piper of hamelin

Thursday, 16 June 2016 15:50

Yours for the Revolution: the life of Jack London

Written by John Green

in Fiction

John Green introduces the life of Jack London. There is a hullabaloo around the quincentenary this year of Shakespeare’s death, but Jack London’s centenary appears to have been forgotten. Yet in his lifetime he became one of the world’s first celebrity writers, and is undoubtedly one of the great novelists…

Thursday, 12 May 2016 16:25

Radical reading and radical writing: remaking children’s literature

Written by Kim Reynolds

in Fiction

Professor Kim Reynolds introduces radical children's literature, and says the time has come when children can become radical writers as well as radical readers. Many people think of writing for children and young people as little more than a training ground for readers; something you pass through on the way to…

Radical children's literature Radical readers Little Rebels Azzi in between I am Henry Finch