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

Monday, 04 January 2021 12:16

The language of the poor, of the most marginal and disdained: This Road of Mine, by Seosamh Mac Grianna

Written by Jenny Farrell

in Fiction

Jenny Farrell introduces This Road of Mine, by Seosamh Mac Grianna, translated by Mícheál Ó hAodha. Published by The Lilliput Press, 2020. One of several important, socialist Irish language writers of the last century, Seosamh Mac Grianna was born 120 years ago (15 January 1901) in Ranafast, County Donegal. Due…

Monday, 04 January 2021 12:12

A working-class voice from the Irish language tradition: Exiles, by Dónall Mac Amhlaigh

Written by Jenny Farrell

in Fiction

Jenny Farrell reviews Exiles, by Dónall Mac Amhlaigh, translated by Mícheál Ó hAodha (Parthian, 2020) Awareness of working-class literature is only growing slowly in Ireland. This is not because it has not so far existed – far from it. Working-class people have known and cherished their tradition for a long…

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Monday, 04 January 2021 11:43

When Jeremy The Wicked Ruled His World

in Fiction

Written by Camillus John

When Jeremy The Wicked Ruled His World ‘Stick your hands up. This is a fucking robbery!’Two animal-masked men bounced up the steps of the tour bus with tiny pistols in their hands. Horse Mask whooshed himself down the central aisle and all the way to the very back seat. He…

jeremy corbyn

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Tuesday, 15 December 2020 21:06

The Sikh Snowman: Review by Jan Woolf

in Fiction

Written by Jan Woolf

Jan Woolf reviews the latest children's book from Culture Matters In homage to Raymond Briggs’ classic book and animation The Snowman, this is a charming tale about snow. But whereas Briggs’ theme is loss, the Gallagher/Stewart one is diversity and unity. Aimed at early readers, it’s also enjoyable to read…

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Sunday, 08 November 2020 22:01

From the Plough to the Stars

in Fiction

Written by Jenny Farrell

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…

K2_PUBLISHED_ON Wednesday, 28 October 2020 14:46

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

in Fiction

Written by Razia Parveen

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

Friday, 02 October 2020 10:54

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

Written by Jenny Farrell

in Fiction

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

Saturday, 22 August 2020 19:26

'History Lite': Hilary Mantel's Cromwell trilogy

Written by John Green

in Fiction

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