With the Scottish referendum fast approaching, it is easy to forget that despite the Yes Scotland campaign’s claim that “the UK is the fourth most unequal country in the developed world”, there are those who remain far less fortunate than we. More than a decade after the success of his Oscar winning No Man’s Land, Read More
Yanick Lahens’ The Colour of Dawn is a poignant, brief novel set over twenty-four hours in the Haitian capital of Port au Prince, and narrated by two very different sisters whilst they await news of their missing political activist brother. The novel revolves around the two narrators Joyeuse and Angelique, and their mother Venante, who Read More
Liam Murray Bell’s second novel, The Busker, takes as its hero Rab Dillon, a Glasgow boy whose guitar might – just might – hold the key to his future. Rab’s journey, from the first thrills of success as a newly-signed political singer to his lowest ebb as a Brighton bum is conceptually solid. Drawing on Read More
Dangerous to Know is Patricia Brody’s second poetry collection, her first – American Desire – having won a 2009 New Women’s Voices Award. In Dangerous to Know, feminist Brody uncovers literature’s hidden women; Dorothy Wordsworth, Anne Donne and many more,”the women we’ve been taught to forget”, who wrote their journals and diaries while their male Read More
Although translated into English by America’s Scala House Press in 2004 under the title The Cartier Project, it is only now that Miha Mazzini’s Crumbs has been published in the UK. Its publication by Freight Books in February of this year is timely; as “a ribald, satirical Balkan classic about identity and independence in the Read More
Following the development of a touching relationship which develops between two strangers, Saajan Fernandes (Irfan Khan) and Ila (Nimrat Kaur), The Lunchbox is Ritra Batra’s tranquil debut feature as both writer and director. The story begins when the lunchbox Ila made for her husband accidentally arrives at Saajan’s desk instead. Saajan is a lonely and Read More
The Catholic Church’s dark history of sexual abuse is a well-documented topic that, within the past twenty years, has become an identity-defining scandal , serving as a damning modern symbol of religious corruption. This has produced many works, both drama and documentary, which have come out in condemnation of such abuse and its subsequent cover ups. However, Read More
Richard Ayoade’s strikingly evocative directorial style was clearly evidenced in Submarine. Though his second film is markedly bleaker, his artistic talent is still palpable. The Double is adapted from Dostoevsky’s 1846 novella of the same name, in which a timid titular councillor is confronted by his own extrovert doppelgänger as he descends into madness. Ayoade’s Read More
“Quit fucking black cops or get booted from the Communist Party.” The opening line of Jonathan Lethem’s ninth novel delivers a stark warning of the somewhat indelicate prose that lies ahead. Dissident Gardens is a modern American epic that follows the people involved in the alternative political movements of the last century, from Communist cells Read More
“Help this story live. We kindly ask that you keep the ending a secret. We wouldn’t want to spoil the ending for other theatregoers and we wish to preserve the ongoing mystery of this iconic murder mystery masterpiece!” So says the programme for Dundee Rep’s masterful performance of Agatha Christie’s classic murder mystery And Then Read More