CHRIS SEARLE welcomes a startling vision of contemporary Newport from a veteran photographer of the British working class
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An illuminating testimony by a wife and comrade
Biographies have been degraded by two opposing tendencies — hagiography or character destruction. This one has restored PAUL SIMON’S trust in the genre
ANGUS REID recommends a very unusual documentary: a love story between two disillusioned journalists
In verse and polemic, the bard points out that he is a poet and musician, not a political party
MARIA DUARTE, JAMES WALSH and ANDY HEDGECOCK review The Invite, My Father’s Island, Nirvanna: the Band, the Show, the Movie, and Oh My Goodness!
PAUL DONOVAN is chilled by the contemporary resonance of Harper Lee’s coming of age tale amidst racism and white supremacy in this excellent production
GEOFF BOTTOMS recommends the unashamedly light-hearted escapism on offer in this stage version of the 1963 film
Reminiscences of Lenin
by Nadezhda Konstantinova Krupskaya
(Haymarket Books £16.80)
Quite rightly, the biographical genre has been treated with suspicion on the left. In principle, the focus on one “great” life or another usually exaggerates the accomplishments of the individual above those of the collective and the underlying economic and social forces.
In practice, the genre has been continuously degraded by two opposing tendencies — hagiography or character destruction.
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JOHN REES replies to Claudia Webbe
JULIA TOPPIN recommends Patti Smith’s eloquent memoir that wrestles with the beauty and sorrow of a lifetime
RON JACOBS is enthralled by an account of the surveillance and political repression on the left in the US
Corbyn and Sultana’s ‘Your Party’ represents the first attempt at mass socialist organisation since the CPGB’s formation in 1921, argues DYLAN MURPHY