JAMIE BRITTON recommends this fine analysis of the architectural, ecological and infrastructural destruction of the Gaza Strip
Latest editorial
Yesterday’s future
Orwell’s 1984 was both timely and prophetic; this feminist reworking is well-written but inconsequential, writes CHRIS MOSS
WHAT ROT: Suzanna Hamilton and John Hurt in Michael Radford’s 1984
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NADIA JOSEPH welcomes a survey of the role that TV played in the debate over apartheid and race relations in Britain
New releases from Rosa Walton, Paul McCartney, and Aidan Thorne & Jason Ball
RON JACOBS welcomes a sharp, intelligent and witty exposé of the corruption and right-wing politics that have taken over international professional football
ALEX HALL welcomes the memoir of a prominent British academic of Ugandan/Zimbabwean heritage
JONATHAN TAYLOR reviews a collection of short stories wherein news - and the absence of news - changes lives
Julia
Sandra Newman, Granta, £18.99
MANY people read George Orwell’s 1984 at school before they’ve come across other literary dystopias. Given the unrelenting, very English gloom that pervades it, chances are it puts them off the genre for good.
Savvy teachers talk up the author’s inventiveness in coining terms like Newspeak, Big Brother, the Ministry of Truth, Ingsoc etc. These have novelty value when first encountered and provoke debate, but have become cliches through overexposure. Orwell’s prescience as regards surveillance is obvious, but its restating has become tiresome and simplistic.
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JULIA THOMAS unpicks the mental processes that explain why book-to-film adaptations so often disappoint
MANJEET RIDON relishes a novel that explores the guilty repressions – and sexual awakenings – of a post-war Dutch bourgeois family