Ron's rages are sincere and — according to his wife — healthily cathartic. But can these splenetic outbursts loosen the grip of capitalism at its most monstrous?
THE TERMS “polymath” and “visionary” may be overused but they’re entirely appropriate to Alasdair Gray, the novelist, playwright, poet, polemicist, painter, scholar and translator who has died aged 85.
Glasgow, Gray’s birthplace and home, hosts several of his public murals. The playful and beautiful celestial ceiling of the Oran Mor arts and theatre bar is a visual symphony in shades of blue, mixing symbols from astrology, mythology, science and natural history.
GORDON PARSONS is intrigued by a biography of the Marxist intellectual and author, made from the point of view of his son
SYLVIA HIKINS relishes Jeanette Winterson’s brilliant hijack of 1001 Nights to push aside the boundaries set by others
KEN COCKBURN relishes the memoir of a translator, but wonders whether the autobiography underlying the impulse would make a better book
JOHN GREEN welcomes a remarkable study of Mozambique’s most renowned contemporary artist


