Pointing to the past: The Fishermen
[Robert Day]
HENRY BELL is fascinated by the underlying curiosities and contradictions of one of the great poets of the Mediterranean
DAVID RENTON recommends a books that explores the ways in which disabled people are made to feel both of and not part of this world
JONATHAN TAYLOR is fascinated by the philosophical problems that permeate the art of life-writing
GORDON PARSONS steps warily in between the lines of Britain’s most famous diarist
SIMON DUFF recommends a recording of Arvo Part that takes the listener on a pilgrimage through seemingly distant times and events of the Bible
GBOLAHAN OBISESAN'S adaptation of Chigozie Obiome’s profoundly moving debut novel —shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize — played to packed audiences at last year’s Edinburgh Festival and this London transfer eloquently confirms why it garnered the plaudits.
This elegiac story of almost mythical significance is told through the tragedy of one family ripped apart by fate and a father’s hubris.
Benjamin, the youngest of four brothers, recalls childhood events when the boys deserted school to fish in a forbidden river, where they encountered a local madman. His prophetic curse in response to the taunts of the oldest of the siblings then plays out with a fated inevitability in a two-man production that runs at just over an hour.
SIMON PARSONS is beguiled by a dream-like exploration of the memories of a childhood in Hong Kong
MANJEET RIDON relishes a novel that explores the guilty repressions – and sexual awakenings – of a post-war Dutch bourgeois family
MARY CONWAY applauds the study of a dysfunctional family set in an Ireland that could be anywhere
