‘Tragic’ was always one of those easy-to-reach for words used to describe Northern Ireland’s ‘troubles’. It managed to avoid picking sides, and recognised that things were more complicated on the ground than the simple catholic vs protestant / irish vs british equations. Not such a bad thing, but more often than not it was also [...]
David Ost’s The Defeat of Solidarity: Anger and Politics in Postcommunist Europe (2005) is the best book of its kind I know. His central thesis is that anger is an inevitable by-product of capitalism and should be channelled into class struggle where it can do some good for ordinary workers. If not, grievances caused by [...]
Novelists Paul Auster and David Grossman appeared together last night on Italian television in a show of solidarity with author Roberto Saviano, who for the last three years has lived under police protection after receiving death threats from the Italian criminal organisation the camorra. They join a growing list, including Salman Rushdie, who have appeared [...]
Raja Shehadeh is a lawyer, a Palestinian activist who has legally contested land seizures. He is also one of the founders of Al Haq, a non-governmental organisation that works to protect human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories.
More importantly, for the purposes of this blog, he is a walker and a writer. These [...]
I have no idea whether Sherry Jone’s novel The Jewel of Medina originally deserved to be published, and I’m not quick off the bat to scold Random House, the publisher which decided at the last minute to not publish the novel after they were warned that it may cause offence to Muslims. Publishing is a subjective [...]
Regular readers of Three Monkeys will know that we have a soft-spot for the Italian literary collective Wu Ming, the people behind novels like Q and 54 (which is very much on our ‘to-review’ list). Wu Ming I (there are five of them) has just published a thoughtful piece where he attempts to define what [...]
I very rarely have the cause or inclination to browse to the Financial Times, but was glad to have done so today. The immediate reasoning was to check for news on the troubled bank of which I am, unfortunately, an account holder. No particular joy there, but instead I stumbled upon an extract from Margaret [...]
“‘Modern art is actually a means of espionage. … If you know how to read them, modern paintings will disclose the weak spots in US fortifications, and such crucial constructions as Boulder Dam.’” This is not the paranoid ravings of some modern-day war on terror nut. It is quoted in Who Paid the Piper? The [...]
I feel more than a little sullied, having finished George and Martha by Karen Finley, and I’ve a feeling that this is one of the desired effects by the author as she pits George W. Bush and Martha Stewart as fictional acerbic lovers holed up in a motel attempting to pleasure themselves in oedipal hi-jinks.
It’s [...]
The Corporate Takeover of Ireland, by UCD’s Kieran Allen, was published in 2007 by the Irish Academic Press, where he is joined by such as Bryan Fanning (also of UCD) and Diarmaid Ferriter. Heavyweights, in other words. A serious business. So why is the book so badly marred by typos and other errors?
“complimentary” where “complementary” [...]
Glamourising torture didn’t start with Fox TV’s 24. It’s an international, or at least anglo-saxon sport with a proud pedigree.
“What I cannot understand is why, in America, the last middle-class country, you still cannot beat this loss of faith in the individual.
I’ve had this argument out. I was reviewing for a London newspaper, and a British [...]
A short selection of our favourite lit blogs
For the full list go to our literary blog links page.
