MIRANDA RICHMOND relishes the gloriously liberated art of Roy Oxlade, and traces his method back to the thinking of David Bomberg, his acknowledged teacher
Slum Boy: a portrait
Juano Diaz
Brazen, £20
INSTEAD of struggling to write sentences with lots of adjectives as his teacher has decreed, a tiny child with scant schooling plays with a pair of craft scissors.
He cuts a long slit up the outside of his trousers and is absorbed by the miracle of his revealed leg. Happening upon on this, his teacher is horrified and shouty. She demands to know why he has done this bit of sartorial damage and she threatens him with punishment if he cannot explain himself. His expression of bafflement seems like the right way of joining in.
MATTHEW HAWKINS relishes the literary output of autistic writers, and recommends its insight to readers both including and beyond the community themselves
JULIA TOPPIN recommends Patti Smith’s eloquent memoir that wrestles with the beauty and sorrow of a lifetime
JAN WOOLF is beguiled by the tempting notion that Freud psychoanalysed Hitler in a comedy that explores the vulnerability of a damaged individual
MATTHEW HAWKINS applauds a psychotherapist’s dissection of William Blake



