MICK MCSHANE is roused by a band whose socialism laces every line of every song with commitment and raw passion
Latest editorial
Split seams
MATTHEW HAWKINS savours the memoir of growing up in the slums of Glasgow in the 1970s and '80s
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
Slum Boy: a portrait
Juano Diaz
Brazen, £20
INSTEAD of struggling to write sentences with lots of adjectives as his teacher has decreed, a tiny child with scant schooling plays with a pair of craft scissors.
He cuts a long slit up the outside of his trousers and is absorbed by the miracle of his revealed leg. Happening upon on this, his teacher is horrified and shouty. She demands to know why he has done this bit of sartorial damage and she threatens him with punishment if he cannot explain himself. His expression of bafflement seems like the right way of joining in.
More from this author
MATTHEW HAWKINS appreciates an interpretation in dance of James Baldwin’s landmark novel of doomed homosexual desire
MATTHEW HAWKINS pays tribute to the performance artist and costumier, Leigh Bowery
MATTHEW HAWKINS is drawn into the everyday lives of women and girls in Muslim communities in southern India
MATTHEW HAWKINS admires a writer with the gumption and wit to extend a transformative experience of autism to the reader
