MIK SABIERS savours the first headline solo show of the stalwart of Brighton’s indie-punk outfit Blood Red Shoes
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Passing: An Alternative History of Identity
Remarkable exploration of how we construct our sense of belonging
New releases reviewed by IAN SINCLAIR
STEVEN ANDREW is moved beyond words by a historical account of mining in Britain made from the words of the miners themselves
CAILEAN MCBRIDE welcomes a refreshing and timely study of the way officialdom creates structures that exclude LGBT+ rights and humanity
The bard mourns the loss of comrades and troubadours, and looks for consolation with Black Country Jess
CHRIS MOSS relishes the painting and the life story of a self-taught working-class artist from Warrington
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a star-studded adaptation of Ibsen’s play that is devoid of believable humanity
“PASSING,” according to Lipika Pelham, is “the act of living or imitating a life belonging to an identity other than the one you have been assigned by society.”
But as the book Passing’s subtitle suggests, this is not just another survey of the contemporary celebratory craze for a recognition of individuality in our mass-conscious world. The author recognises that the quest for identity, an essential facet of humanity, has “no absolute markers to measure our being or belonging.”
A documentary film-maker and much-travelled ex-BBC foreign correspondent, Pelham is a Bangladeshi Hindu who married an English Jewish NGO worker who now lives between London and Jerusalem and has become accustomed to the stresses of reinventing herself to fit in with social preconceptions and expectations.
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GORDON PARSONS recommends an ideal introduction to the writer who was first to give the English a literary language
GORDON PARSONS welcomes a graphic biography of George Sand, the most popular French novelist in 19th-century Britain
