GLENN BURGESS suggests that, despite his record in Spain, Orwell’s enduring commitment to socialist revolution underpins his late novels
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In the Heights
MARIA DUARTE is inspired by an uplifting musical about Hispanic immigrants making a home for themselves in New York City
A screenshot from Jon M Chu's In the Heights
CHRISTOPHER POLLARD explains how and why neoliberalism adopted the racist agenda common to the populist right of today
SYLVIA HIKINS recommends a sweeping survey of the world's biggest desert and the people who live there
GUILLERMO THOMAS is persuaded by a scathing critique of the Church of England and its embeddedness in imperialism
MARIA DUARTE and ANGUS REID review Materialists, Unmoored, Together, and Bambi: A Tale of Life in The Woods
TONY BURKE revels in the publication of previously unreleased tracks by the great US folksinger
GORDON PARSONS endures heavy rock punctuated by Shakespeare, and a delighted audience
In the Heights (PG)
Directed by Jon M Chu
FROM the creator and star of Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda, comes an uplifting and rousing exploration of what it means to be a Hispanic immigrant and dreamer in the US — particularly in the wake of the Trump administration, which labelled them killers, rapists and criminals — in this film adaptation of his award-winning stage musical.
It opens with the film’s narrator, Usnavi (an exceptional Anthony Ramos from Hamilton), on a beachside bar in the Dominican Republic recounting to some young kids his life in the largely Dominican Washington Heights neighbourhood of Upper Manhattan in New York City.
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