MARIA DUARTE is swept along by the cocky self-belief of a ping-pong hustler in a surprisingly violent drama
Latest editorial
Haunting tale of Colombian orphan
STEVE ANDREW recommends a lively and often moving guide to once vibrant spaces that have been abandoned or swept away
GEOFF BOTTOMS appreciates the local touch brought to a production of Dickens’s perennial classic
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a production whose design and cartoonish acting overwhelms the close scrutiny of characters
SUSAN DARLINGTON enjoys the raucous familiarity of a traditional topsy-turvy pantomime
RON JACOBS introduces the latest novel by the best writer of US working-class fiction writing today
The Children
by Carolina Sanin
(MacLehose Press, £14)
THROUGHOUT Colombia there are 2.5 million children — one out of every three — who have lost parents due to civil conflict, HIV/Aids or who’ve been abandoned due to extreme poverty, parental drug abuse or arrest. Of them, 40,000 are “displaced.”
Those are the grim statistics underpinning The Children, a compelling debut novel by young Colombian writer Carolina Sanin, who sheds light on the abandoned children of Bogota in a work imbued with humanity, intelligence and social awareness.
Similar stories
Peter Mitchell's photography reveals a poetic relationship with Leeds
JOHN GREEN surveys the remarkable career of screenwriter Malcolm Hulke and the essential part played by his membership of the Communist Party
ANDY HEDGECOCK relishes two exhibitions that blur the boundaries between art and community engagement
The Morning Star sorts the good eggs from the rotten scoundrels of the year