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, 17 September 2024 09:14

'Capitalism: A Horror Story': An interview with the author

Written by Brett Gregory

in Fiction

Brett Gregory interviews Jon Greenaway, author of 'Capitalism: A Horror Story' BG: Hi, my name’s Brett Gregory, and I’m an associate editor of the UK arts, culture, and politics website, Culture Matters. I’ve interviewed 19 authors, artists, and academics over the past year and a half, and today will be…

Saturday, 14 September 2024 13:03

Callout for short stories from the Morning Star

Written by Culture Matters

in Fiction

Andy Hedgecock introduces a callout for short stories. Image above: not Lenin writing flash fiction, but Lenin in Smolny, by Isaac Brodsky, 1930 (detail) Photo: Tretyakov Gallery/CC In the summer of my 15th year, in a room with a view of Loch Linnhe, I read The Sixth Fontana Book of…

HG Wells JB Priestley Paradise Block Fen

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Sunday, 08 September 2024 10:40

Culture Matters Presents: Charlie Hill & Wayne Dean-Richards Double Header

in Fiction

Written by Culture Matters

Culture Matters are proud to present an online prose double-header featuring the writerly talents of CM stalwarts Wayne Dean-Richards & Charlie Hill. Charlie will read from his recently published CM pamphlet This Albion: Snapshots of a Compromised Land, a psycho-geographical journey across the UK's post-industrial edges; a journey driven equally…

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Friday, 26 July 2024 09:24

A Drive to Change the World: James Baldwin, Black Author, Socialist and Activist

in Fiction

Written by Jenny Farrell

James Baldwin, the important left-wing, Black author and activist, was born one hundred years ago in Harlem, New York, on 2 August 1924. Baldwin’s stepfather David, a Pentecostal preacher, was a factory worker, earning too little to provide for his family of nine children. His mother Berdis, a migrant from…

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Saturday, 06 July 2024 13:25

Where We Go, Others Will Follow: Review of 'Gaza: This Bleeding Land' by John Wight

in Fiction

Written by Jim Aitken

The current horror in Gaza is just the latest in a long line of such horrors. The present incursion is called Operation Swords of Iron. The metallurgical concept of this ‘operation’ recalls a previous one in 2008-9 called Operation Cast Lead. While it would be fair to say that ‘cast…

Genocide in Gaza Israeli bombing apartheid state

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Tuesday, 25 June 2024 08:56

The Suitcase

in Fiction

Written by Alan McCormick

He carries the suitcase like he means business. He carries it like he cares about it. He carries it like he cares about it too much. He carries it like he’s been somewhere with it. Like they’ve been somewhere. Together. The suitcase and him. The suitcase never leaves his side.…

refugees Right wing extremism Dublin riots

Sunday, 02 June 2024 12:46

'Gaza: This Bleeding Land', by John Wight

Written by John Wight

in Fiction

John Wight presents an extract from his new book, Gaza: This Bleeding Land, which tells the story of this prolonged tragedy through the eyes of two rival combatants. The novel is currently available from Amazon and all good bookstores and shops in the US and UK. It comes in hardcover,…

Gaza genocide

Tuesday, 21 May 2024 21:45

East German Literature: Challenges and Triumphs in Cultural Recognition

Written by Jenny Farrell

in Fiction

Germany’s minister of state for culture, the senior Green politician Claudia Roth, one of the almost exclusively West German-born government officials, voiced her surprise at a recent literary event upon discovering that there were other books on East German (GDR) bookshelves than the ones she knew. This was a rare…

Kairos Jenny Erpenbeck International Booker prize

Monday, 06 May 2024 12:31

'Prophet Song': The secular apocalypse

Written by Caoimhghin O Croidheain

in Fiction

In his book, How The Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role from the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Europe, Thomas Cahill shows how Irish monks maintained European culture during the dark ages when Rome was sacked by Visigoths and its empire collapsed. In…

Tuesday, 09 April 2024 12:11

Dark Stories for Dark Times: The 2024 Crime Novel

Written by Dennis Broe

in Fiction

This year the Quais du Polar in Lyon, the largest European festival of crime novels and one of the largest in the world, in celebrating its 20th season, was marked by the intrusion into the spine of the novels by the real-world problems and catastrophes going on around the festival.…

Quais Du Polar Stieg Larsson Karin smirnoff Steve McQueen Lisbeth Salander