WILL STONE fact-checks the colourful life of Ozzy Osbourne
‘This is as balanced a story as you can find’
Playwright ISMAEL KHALIDI talks to Joe Gill about how his theatre adaptation of the famous Palestinian novella Returning to Haifa was axed in New York, then found a home in London
Returning to Haifa
[Scott Rylander] 
JAMES CROSSLEY applauds a lucid biography of the German radical preacher who reemerged as a hero in the GDR
Prizes all round: the Bard hands plaudits to the Miners Gala, OT&JC, Joe Solo, Black Sabbath’s frontman and the Lionesses
Star cartoonist JAMIE BRITTON is in awe of a graphic novel of epic proportions that explores class, religion and globalisation via the strange cultivation of Ginseng in the US Midwest
GUILLERMO THOMAS is intrigued by a history of the Middle East that demonstrates how promising post colonial beginnings were snuffed out by Western imperialist interests
MARIA DUARTE recommends the intricate study of a high-performance and highly dysfuntional German family
BEFORE his assassination in Beirut in 1972 by the Israeli secret service Mossad, Ghassan Kanafani was one of the greatest Palestinian writers and political activists of his generation. His novella Returning to Haifa was highly influential in the aftermath of the 1967 war, when Israel seized east Jerusalem and the West Bank, which it holds to this day.
Ismael Khalidi
Kanafani got the inspiration for the book when his cousin and her husband crossed into Palestine after the June war in 1967. There they were told stories about how during the zionist attacks on Palestinian cities and villages, many families forced to leave their homes got separated during the Nakbah (“catastrophe”) in 1948 during a war in which 700,000 fled or were expelled from their homes.
More from this author
JOE GILL looks at research on the reasons people voted as they did last week and concludes Labour is finished unless it ditches Starmer and changes course
The massacre of Red Crescent and civil defence aid workers has elicited little coverage and no condemnation by major powers — this is the age of lawlessness, warns JOE GILL
The trio were given a conditional discharge and £600 penalties after painting ‘Stop arming Israel’ on Science Secretary Peter Kyle’s window in frustration at being ignored despite attempts to meet their MP, reports JOE GILL
JOE GILL hazards a guess: Musk’s salute was a message to all of the world’s far-right legions: now is our time
