CHRIS SEARLE recommends a work of love and deep admiration for a great musician
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Genocide, then and now
FIONA O’CONNOR detects contemporary relevance in the depiction of a society heading into the abyss while the world does nothing
[Ricard Efa and Cesc F Dalmases]
KENNY MacASKILL relishes a fictionalised account of the life and death of the principled Irish anti-colonialist, executed for betraying his English imperial masters
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
Adieu Birkenau
By Ginette Kolinka, JD Morvan and Victor Matet, SelfMadeHero, £19.99
IN our present predicament this graphic novel, written by a survivor of Nazi extermination camps, is a valiant testament to the power of witness.
Ginette Kolinka is a Parisian Jew halfway through her ninth decade. In 1941 she and her family escaped Nazi Paris only to be arrested by German authorities in the free zone.
She was imprisoned and then transferred to the SS-controlled internment camp at Drancy. As part of “the Final Solution” she was transported with her father and her younger brother, Gilbert, to Auschwitz II-Birkenau.
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On May 16 1944, Romani families in Auschwitz-Birkenau armed themselves with stones, tools, and sheer collective will, forcing the SS to retreat – leaving a legacy of defiance that speaks directly to the fascisms of today, says VICTORIA HOLMES
SIMON PARSONS is beguiled by a dream-like exploration of the memories of a childhood in Hong Kong
ANDY HEDGECOCK recommends that these beautifully written diaries from Gaza be essential reading for thick-skinned MPs