MATTHEW HAWKINS applauds a psychotherapist’s disection of William Blake
Maria Fyfe: A working-class hero is something to be
ANGUS REID recommends the brilliant memoir of a Labour activist and politician who never lost sight of her roots
INDEFATIGABLE: Maria Fyfe (far right) in front of Mary Barbour memorial
New releases from Christina Alden and Alex Patterson, Odette Michell, Clementine Lovell
JOHN GREEN is fascinated by a very readable account of Britain’s involvement in South America
Strip cartoons used to be the bread and butter of newspapers and they have been around for centuries. MICHAL BONCZA asks our own Paul Tanner about which bees are in his bonnet
GORDON PARSONS acknowledges the authority with which Sarah Kane’s theatrical justification for suicide has resonance today
RON JACOBS welcomes a timely homage to one of the IWW and CPUSA’s most effective orators
Singing in the Streets
by Maria Fyfe
(Luath Press, £14.99)
IN TELLING the story of her life, from her birth in 1938 in the Gorbals up to the moment she entered Parliament in 1987, Maria Fyfe proves herself to be a writer of rare brilliance.
Her Glasgow memoir Singing in the Streets is fast-paced and dramatic, moving and extremely funny. Head and shoulders above others in the field of political autobiography, she has a poet’s eye for detail and deft picture-painting and a writer’s genius for telling an extraordinary story.
It’s a story of a working-class woman’s self-emancipation and commitment to the emancipation of others. And it’s a love story that is never sentimental but that makes you weep.
More from this author
ANGUS REID applauds the ambitious occupation of a vast abandoned paper factory by artists mindful of the departed workforce
ANGUS REID calls for artists and curators to play their part with political and historical responsibility
ANGUS REID recommends a landmark work of aural history that follows the intertwined lives of four International Brigaders
ANGUS REID reviews a book that is an important and comprehensive work of documentation
