MATTHEW HAWKINS applauds a psychotherapist’s disection of William Blake
A fine evocation of today’s Nigeria
MARJORIE MAYO recommends the story of two families caught up in the riptides of wealth, power, romantic obsession and political corruption
Buying and selling in Mushin Oloosa market, Lagos-Nigeria, 2018
[Omoeko Media/CC] 
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
A Spell of Good Things
Ayobami Adebayo
Canongate, £9.99
AYOBAMI ADEBAYO’S second novel has been widely praised for being eminently readable as well as extremely relevant, combining the personal with the political in 21st century Nigeria.
Set against the background of the restoration of democracy following years of military dictatorships, it shows a context fraught with the problems of rising inequalities, decaying public services and political corruption, along with gender inequalities and domestic violence.
More from this author
MARJORIE MAYO welcomes challenging insights and thought-provoking criticisms of a number of widely accepted assumptions on the left
MARJORIE MAYO recommends a disturbing book that seeks to recover traces of the past that have been erased by Israeli colonialism
MARJORIE MAYO recommends an accessible and unsettling novel that uses a true incident of death in the Channel to raise questions of wider moral responsibility
These are vivid accounts of people’s experiences of far-right violence along with documentation of popular resistance, says MARJORIE MAYO
