MICK MCSHANE is roused by a band whose socialism laces every line of every song with commitment and raw passion
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Bitter old croc
JOHN GREEN suggests you pass on a novelette that recycles the communist past without hope or tangible history
The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion monument, in Ottawa, remembering Canadian volunteers in the Spanish Civil War, was unveiled on October 20 2001 and was selected through a competition won by Oryst Sawchuk
Pic: Gabriel/CC
New releases from Mountain, Soul Asylum and Michael McDermott
ALEX HALL is disgusted by the misuse of ‘emotional narratives’ to justify uninformed geo-political prejudice
SUE TURNER welcomes a thoughtful, engaging book that lays bare the economic realities of global waste management
JOHN GREEN welcomes an insider account of the achievements and failures of the transition to democracy in Portugal
SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic
PETER MASON is enthralled by an assembly of objects, ancient and modern, that have lain in the mud of London’s river
The Alligator’s Trap
By Antonio Soler (trans Kathryn Phillips-Miles & Simon Deefholts), Clapton Press, £12.99
THIS enigmatic and elliptical novelette left this reader very dissatisfied. A Spanish refugee, living out his twilight years in Canada delivers a bitter, circular soliloquy, taking us from the present to the past and back again on a slippery, uncertain path.
The narrator is a political refugee from Spain, who is working as a hotel receptionist in Toronto, Canada.
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While the group known as the Colourists certainly reinvigorated Scottish painting, a new show is a welcome chance to reassess them, writes ANGUS REID
ANGUS REID recommends an exquisite drama about the disturbing impact of the one child policy in contemporary China
The phrase “cruel to be kind” comes from Hamlet, but Shakespeare’s Prince didn’t go in for kidnap, explosive punches, and cigarette deprivation. Tam is different.
ANGUS REID deconstructs a popular contemporary novel aimed at a ‘queer’ young adult readership
