GEOFF BOTTOMS relishes a profoundly human portrait of a family as it evolves across 55 years in Sheffield
Letters From Latin America
Review of fiction by Uruguayan writers Ida Vitale and Fernanda Trias
(L to R) Ida Vitale and Fernanda Trias
[(L to R) Pdx123/Creative Commons; Charco Press]
PAUL DONOVAN applauds an excellently crafted new musical that explores the life and death of Ruth Ellis
PAUL DONOVAN is tickled by the excruciating take-downs of one of the funniest, wittiest, political writers around.
RON JACOBS points out, via a transcription of Kissinger’s secret recordings, that Trump could never have existed without Nixon and Kissinger
ELLIS RAE is persuaded that the advantages of the ‘talking cure’ are superior to the treatment of mental illness with drugs
JOHN GREEN, MICHAL BONCZA and BELLA KATZ review The Good Boy, Broken English, and Don't Be Prey
BYOBU (Charco Press, £9.99) is a puzzling book by the Uruguayan poet Ida Vitale (b1923), a member of the acclaimed Generation of ’45 and winner of one the most important literary distinctions in the Spanish language, the Cervantes Prize.
It is Vitale’s first book of prose to be published in English and has been superbly translated by Sean Manning. It could be read as an experimental novel, an essayistic notebook or as a series of concatenated aphorisms.
But it is also a book of poetry written in prose, where the main character, the elusive Byobu, navigates a tantalising world woven through by many strange and playful stories.
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