WILL STONE fact-checks the colourful life of Ozzy Osbourne
Freedom at novels’ heart
FIONA O’CONNOR recommends two novels telling of real contemporary experiences that question the nature of liberty and fraternity in present times
The Trans-Siberian stops at Omsk
[Hugues/CC] 
JAMES CROSSLEY applauds a lucid biography of the German radical preacher who reemerged as a hero in the GDR
Prizes all round: the Bard hands plaudits to the Miners Gala, OT&JC, Joe Solo, Black Sabbath’s frontman and the Lionesses
Star cartoonist JAMIE BRITTON is in awe of a graphic novel of epic proportions that explores class, religion and globalisation via the strange cultivation of Ginseng in the US Midwest
GUILLERMO THOMAS is intrigued by a history of the Middle East that demonstrates how promising post colonial beginnings were snuffed out by Western imperialist interests
MARIA DUARTE recommends the intricate study of a high-performance and highly dysfuntional German family
Down with the Poor!
By Shumona Sinha
LesFugitives Press, £12.99
Eastbound
By Maylis de Kerangal
LesFugitives Press, £10.99
SHUMONA Sinha’s Down with the Poor! translated by Teresa Lavender Fagan, sets up a complex and perplexing position on south Asian immigration to France.
The first-person narrative belongs to a young Indian woman, a translator at asylum appeal hearings in Paris. She is spending the night in police cells having smashed a bottle over a man’s head — an asylum-seeker.
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FIONA O'CONNOR recommends a biography that is a beautiful achievement and could stand as a manifesto for the power of subtlety in art
FIONA O’CONNOR is fascinated by a novel written from the perspective of a neurodivergent psychology student who falls in love
FIONA O’CONNOR steps warily through a novel that skewers many of the exposed flanks of the over-privileged
A uncomfortably misogynistic authorial voice that sometimes seems to lack insight troubles FIONA O’CONNOR
