KENNY MacASKILL relishes a fictionalised account of the life and death of the principled Irish anti-colonialist, executed for betraying his English imperial masters
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Militants, Artists and Poets by Jim Burns
Choice compendium of countercultural currents
FIONA O’CONNOR admires an ambitious first novel that loosens South Africa’s rainbow collective to examine the racial tensions within
Aussie mining corporation murder, Liverpudlian ex-cop amnesia, a naive vigilante tries to reset capitalism, and the riddle of the dead psychoanalyst
SYLVIA HIKINS is persuaded by an entertaining play that the true miracle of Lourdes would be for attitudes toward disability to change
JAMIE BRITTON recommends this fine analysis of the architectural, ecological and infrastructural destruction of the Gaza Strip
NADIA JOSEPH welcomes a survey of the role that TV played in the debate over apartheid and race relations in Britain
WHILE I might initially have had some misgivings about reviewing a book made up entirely of book reviews, by a few chapters into Militants, Artists and Poets I was quickly convinced that this was going to be an enjoyable and often thought-provoking read, not least in signposting new and original books I hadn’t already encountered.
Clear and relaxed, Burns’s almost effortless style of writing enthusiastically explores a kaleidoscopic range of materials and manages to do so in an fashion that is fair, balanced and thoroughly objective.
A key attraction of this collection is that it generates interest in the most unlikely and often sadly marginalised of
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NICK MATTHEWS previews a landmark book launch taking place in Leicester next weekend