WILL STONE fact-checks the colourful life of Ozzy Osbourne
My Brother the Messiah
Thought-provoking parable of dystopian times to come
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
MARTIN VOPENKA’S previous novel The Fifth Dimension is a troubling, comfortless and problematic book — and that description largely applies to the Czech writer’s latest, in an astringent translation by Anna Bryson Gustova.
Written from the viewpoint of protagonist Marek, My Brother the Messiah weaves back and forth across the decades of a dystopian 22nd century.
During that time, a botched technological attempt to arrest global warming has resulted instead in a new ice age. As polar conditions spread southwards, massive European migrations begin as Scandinavians head to the centre of the continent and then, as conditions worsen, whole Czech and Austrian populations escape in turn to Greece.
More from this author
An absorbing metaphor for contemporary Western societies is recommended by PAUL SIMON
PAUL SIMON falls under the spell of little known authors from an island at the edge of the world
