The Stupidity of Men – Women in the Plays of Seán O’Casey

In dealing with the subject of women in Seán O’Casey’s plays, it is revealing to refer to the influence of women on Sean O’Casey’s early life. O’Casey’s father died when he was a young child and he was brought up by his mother and educated at home by his sister, who was a schoolteacher. In […]

The Poetess of Naïveté – Interview with Syrian poet Maram Al-Massri.

[This article is a translation from the Italian edition of Three Monkeys Online. To read the original, in Italian, click here.] Maram al-Masri came to me, wrapped in a yellow envelope, from Genoa. Both of us trembling. For this meeting, happened by chance, via email first and then through her work, through the act of […]

Guess what’s cooking for dinner? An interview with Marsha Mehran, author of Pomegranate Soup

New York, London, and Paris, cosmopolitan containers of nationalities and personalities, are perhaps the cities in the world that most resemble the collective idea of the 'melting pot'. They are so because of all the people that arrived and continue to arrive there from other spots, and also because these people mix within them, marry […]

Still Fighting Apartheid – South African Activist Dennis Brutus

Denis Brutus, born in 1924 in what was then British Rhodesia to South African parents, shot to prominence (and jail) in the 1960s campaigning for a boycott of South Africa in the sporting world. A veteran activist, poet and Professor of African Studies and African Literature, Brutus continues to campaign vigorously against economic injustice. His […]

Growing Signs of Unrest in the Maldives

The Maldivian government’s use of excessive force in mid-August to quell demonstrations by opposition activists demanding democratic reforms indicates that its commitment to establishing multi-party democracy in the country remains weak. There is a danger that its foot dragging on democratic reform and the suppression of its secular-moderate opponents could clear the way for assertion […]

Central America’s Street Gangs Are Drawn into the World of Geopolitics

Over the course of the past year, the Bush administration has begun to shift its focus in Latin America away from asymmetrical threats, such as terrorism, and toward the more traditional power politics of the region: containing the left-leaning governments bent on curtailing Washington’s influence in the region. Threats previously espoused by the administration — […]

Why recruitment agencies make estate agents look good

Remember �disintermediation�? It was a polysyllabic buzzword much beloved by Internet gurus during the height of the dot.com bubble. It basically meant cutting out the middle man, those retailers, agents, and, well, intermediaries that stood between the customer and the product they wanted. It was clear what disintermediation could deliver�the �Information superhighway� would pave over […]

Writing Against Terror – Nadeem Aslam

The easy choice would be to jump right in and ask novelist Nadeem Aslam what his thoughts are on the recent bombings in London. After all, his critically acclaimed novel Maps for Lost Lovers was a lyrical examination of the very immigrant communities in the North of England from which the alleged bombers came. British […]

Another death blow to virility – Bishops, body counts and gay unions

Possible issues that may provoke an impassioned bout of (publicity generating) letter writing, on the part of an Italian Catholic Bishop:

• Italian participation in ‘peace and democracy’ waging in Iraq, that has, to date, resulted in the killing of an estimated 9,270 civilians by coalition forces
• Third world debt cancellation and trade reforms, not delivered by the G8, of which Italy is a member
• The exploitation of illegal immigrants, creating sweatshops and virtually slavery within Europe, and Italy