WILL STONE fact-checks the colourful life of Ozzy Osbourne
Resonant realities from Ramallah
SUE TURNER recommends an outstanding book of short stories set in the Palestinian city
MULTI-FACETED: Ramallah
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
The Book of Ramallah
Edited by Maya Abu Al-Hayat
(Comma Press, £9.99)
THE BOOK of Ramallah is the latest in Comma Press’s short-story collections based on a city, usually a capital.
Situated in the West Bank, some 10 miles from Jerusalem and ranged along a ridge of the Samarian Hills, Ramallah is a capital city of sorts. It acts as an administrative centre, with government ministries, the HQ of the Palestinian Security Services and the Mukata’a compound, the seat of the Palestinian Authority.
It’s notorious for the two-year siege the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) imposed on Yasser Arafat, almost killing him as the bulldozers rolled in at the end.
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