PETER MASON applauds the revival, 39 years later with the same team and cast, of Manfred Karge’s version of Brecht’s 100-year-old play, Mann Ist Mann
Resonant realities from Ramallah
SUE TURNER recommends an outstanding book of short stories set in the Palestinian city
MULTI-FACETED: Ramallah
MAYER WAKEFIELD applauds a fearless attempt to bring to the stage the 1984 toxic gas disaster in Bhopal, India
ALEX HALL applauds the account of a dogged, traumatic and punishing campaign for justice that has lasted from 1998 to the present day
NICK WRIGHT laments the political bias of an epic attempt to tell the history of the liberation of France from the Nazis, that excludes both the decisive contribution of the Soviet Red Army, and of the French communist party itself
JOE GILL traces the ideology and method of contemporary imperialism back to the greed, hubris and violence of the late 15th century Portuguese
The Book of Ramallah
Edited by Maya Abu Al-Hayat
(Comma Press, £9.99)
THE BOOK of Ramallah is the latest in Comma Press’s short-story collections based on a city, usually a capital.
Situated in the West Bank, some 10 miles from Jerusalem and ranged along a ridge of the Samarian Hills, Ramallah is a capital city of sorts. It acts as an administrative centre, with government ministries, the HQ of the Palestinian Security Services and the Mukata’a compound, the seat of the Palestinian Authority.
It’s notorious for the two-year siege the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) imposed on Yasser Arafat, almost killing him as the bulldozers rolled in at the end.
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RUTH AYLETT recommends that this mixture of memoir, diary and poetry by a young Gazan writer be read as widely as possible