ANDREW MURRAY is compelled by the moment of revolution in British history when Parliament had political intimacy with society
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An error occurred while searching, try again later.Delicious literary journalism
JAN WOOLF savours the essays of Hilary Mantel: high calorific brain food that slips down nicely
The Star's critic MARIA DUARTE Reviews of Twiggy, Mickey 17, Day of the Fight, and Marching Powder
GAVIN O’TOOLE welcomes a masterful study of gang behaviour in the favelas of Sao Paulo
Helen Colley introduces this year’s ScreenCuba film festival with an exclusive offer to Morning Star readers
DENNIS BROE appreciates the work of TV writer Steven Knight, and his systematic exposure of the debilitating effects of British capitalism
A pamphlet by British Latinx poet Patrick Romero McCafferty, poetry by Anglo-Argentinian Miguel Cullen, and a book of conjuring poems by Mexican Pedro Serrano
MAYER WAKEFIELD wonders why this 1978 drama merits a revival despite demonstrating that the underlying theme of racism in the UK remains relevant
A Memoir of my Former Self
Hilary Mantel
John Murray, £25
A MEMOIR of my Former Self, or “Messages from people I used to be” is a selection of journalism from one of our finest writers.
Harvested by her long-time editor Nicholas Pearson and published a year after her death last year, the range is 2007-2017. The book is divided into sections – essays, film reviews (from her time at The Spectator), Reith Lectures and an enticingly named collection called The Moon Was a Tender Crescent. Although journalism they read as literature, with the writer in an artist’s resonance with her subject; whether another writer, the past or the act of writing itself. Ink is a generative fluid.
Not academic, yet academically impeccable, she often defies the litocracy of the creative writing industry. In terms of “showing, and not telling” she demonstrates what needs showing, and what telling, and how these styles of writing form the aesthetic balance of a book, much like cold and warm colours do in painting or tapestry.
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