MARK TURNER wallows in the virtuosity of Swansea Jazz Festival openers, Simon Spillett and Pete Long
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Freedom at novels’ heart
FIONA O’CONNOR recommends two novels telling of real contemporary experiences that question the nature of liberty and fraternity in present times
The Trans-Siberian stops at Omsk
[Hugues/CC] 
PAUL DONOVAN recommends three new books that explore the human relationship with nature
Doomed adolescents, when the missing person is you, classic whodunnit, and an anti-capitalist eco-thriller
WILL STONE takes a ticket to indie disco heaven, but misses the rarely performed tunes
Reviews of new releases by Jens Lekman, Big Thief, and Christian McBride Big Band
TOM PIERSCIONEK recommends a remarkable series of interviews with those few and brave Israeli citizens who refuse to do military service
Down with the Poor!
By Shumona Sinha
LesFugitives Press, £12.99
Eastbound
By Maylis de Kerangal
LesFugitives Press, £10.99
SHUMONA Sinha’s Down with the Poor! translated by Teresa Lavender Fagan, sets up a complex and perplexing position on south Asian immigration to France.
The first-person narrative belongs to a young Indian woman, a translator at asylum appeal hearings in Paris. She is spending the night in police cells having smashed a bottle over a man’s head — an asylum-seeker.
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FIONA O CONNOR recommends an unflinching depiction of child sexual abuse and its aftershocks, set in a working-class Liverpool family
FIONA O'CONNOR recommends a biography that is a beautiful achievement and could stand as a manifesto for the power of subtlety in art
FIONA O’CONNOR is fascinated by a novel written from the perspective of a neurodivergent psychology student who falls in love
FIONA O’CONNOR steps warily through a novel that skewers many of the exposed flanks of the over-privileged
