JENNY MITCHELL, poetry co-editor for the Morning Star, introduces her priorities, and her first selection
‘Are we the same person? If not, when and why not?’
Radical playwright DAVID EDGAR talks to Mayer Wakefield about the personal and political questions posed in his one-man show Trying It On in which, at the age of 70, he confronts his 20-year-old self
David Edgar
HENRY BELL is sceptical of the notion that ‘progress’ is an ideology that the ruling class uses exclusively to camouflage appropriation
In search of political understanding, MATTHEW HAWKINS welcomes a critique of anti-semitism as codified by the Israeli state
BEN CHACKO welcomes a masterful analysis that puts class struggle back at the heart of our understanding of China’s revolution
JOHN GREEN is intrigued by the ethereal, ghostly quality of images of a London unobscured by the bustle of humanity
JENNY FARRELL relishes an outstanding Palestinian novel that immerses readers in the sensory reality of Gaza, then and now
AI-induced murder, last rites for the mob-dog, a gullible common herd, and an exemplary Christmas chiller
WHAT did a 20-year-old David Edgar make of events in 1968?
I was very inspired by them. I came to university from a public school, where I’d been involved in CND and was very much opposed to the Vietnam war.
But when I got there, I was quite taken aback by the revolutionary left, whose rhetoric and politics were much further to the left than anything I’d come across before.
In April 1968, I found a mentor — a leading radical student — who said to me just after the Tet offensive: “Why do you think the Viet Cong were able to get into the compound of the [US] embassy?
Similar stories
Aslef general secretary MICK WHELAN speaks to Ben Chacko about rail renationalisation, the Employment Rights Bill and why we shouldn’t write off this Labour government
Chief executive facing calls for dismissal over a pay and bonuses scandal