Reviews of Habibi Funk 031, Kayatibu, and The Good Ones
Latest editorial
Mexico’s Soviet kiss
GAVIN O’TOOLE recommends a book that examines the ‘invisible’ cultural cross-fertilisation that has bypassed the globalisation peddled by the West
Lolita Torres in A fiance for Laura, 1955
[Public Domain]
SIMON DUFF relishes the cross contamination of Damien Hirst’s greatest hits by street artists from France and the US
In view of the grooming gangs inquiry, SIMON PARSONS feels the relevance of this powerful examination of trauma suffered at Medomsley Youth Detention Centre
JOHN GREEN doubts the motivations of a US war photographer who never questions why, or for whom, she is producing images of imperialist conflict
MARIA DUARTE reviews Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, Hedda, The Mastermind, and Regretting You
TONY CONWAY welcomes a thrilling and concise history of Hope not Hate, that is also a manual full of tactical advice
PAUL DONOVAN welcomes an inspiring account of living with deafness that has important lessons for the treatment of deaf people in today’s UK
Romancing Yesenia: How a Mexican Melodrama Shaped Global Popular Culture
by Masha Salazkina
University of California Press, £25
WHY would a mother in the Soviet Union of the early 1960s as it clawed its way out of the darkness of Stalinism into a new dawn name her daughter Lolita — and not Audrey, Marilyn, Lucille or Debbie?
After all, the latter were setting aflame the passions of the Western world as Hollywood starlets became the face of a new form of cinema extending US cultural imperialism and the “American way of life” across the globe.
Similar stories
ANGUS REID recommends an exquisite drama about the disturbing impact of the one child policy in contemporary China
JOHN GREEN surveys the remarkable career of screenwriter Malcolm Hulke and the essential part played by his membership of the Communist Party
Global South governments’ sovereignty and ability to decide future economic policy are severely compromised by signing free trade agreements, whose terms are heavily weighted in favour of the already wealthy countries of the global North, writes BERT SCHOUWENBURG
STEVEN ANDREW welcomes the third instalment of autobiography by a libertarian socialist whose political work is charged with Gramscian realism