Dr Rebecca Reich examines politics, culture and reality in the Soviet Union “Dissenters in the USSR responded by making literary use of psychiatric discourse to both validate themselves and challenge the authority of the state. “The impact of their essays, transcripts, poems and works of fiction may have seemed limited within the isolation and silence… Read More State of Madness: Psychiatry, Literature, and Dissent After Stalin
Miłosz’s complicated Second World War Alan Jacobs The Polish poet Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004) had a complicated Second World War. He was in Warsaw when the Germans invaded, fleeing then to Ukraine. But then, discovering that his wife had been unable to escape Poland, he tried to return to her by way of Romania, then Ukraine… Read More A Quarrel With the World
++++++Readers outside of India can donate hereto support Mainstream Weeklyhttps://tinyurl.com/2rsy4ss6++++++ In this issue DOCUMENTS: BOOKS IMAGE & SOUND Editor’s Picks: Books of Note
László Krasznahorkai was awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature “for his compelling and visionary work that, amid apocalyptic terror, reaffirms the power of art”. Krasznahorkai is a great epic writer in the Central European tradition, stretching from Kafka to Thomas Bernhard, and characterized by absurdity and grotesque excess.The writer recalls how Franz Kafka introduced… Read More László Krasznahorkai, 2025 Nobel Laureate in Literature: “Human beings remain the same, dangerous to themselves”
Readers outside of India can donate hereto support Mainstream Weeklyhttps://tinyurl.com/2rsy4ss6++++++ In this issue IMAGE & SOUND Editor’s Picks: Books of Note https://mainstreamweekly.net/article16391.html
María Ramírez Franco’s Crypt: Spanish Culture and Memory Since 1936 – by Jeremy Treglown Reviewed by Jeremy Adelman On August 19, 1936, militiamen loyal to General Francisco Franco murdered Spain’s famous poet and dramatist Federico García Lorca. Afterward, one of the killers, the Falangist Juan Trecastro, burst into a local bar and said, “We’ve just… Read More Spain: Emerging from the Labyrinth / I grew up in Spain amid a collective amnesia about Franco. It is time we faced up to our dark past
As the actor approaches his 90th year and publishes an autobiography, he reflects on his early years on stage, being inspired by Laurence Olivier, becoming a Hollywood star and conquering his demons Steve Rose ‘What’s the weather like over there?” asks Anthony Hopkins as soon as our video call begins. He may have lived in California for… Read More We Did OK, Kid: Antony Hopkins looks back on a tumultuous life
Essays in Contemporary History and Politics My book’s title is taken from the first article in the list below. It is dedicated to Sita Ram Mali, and my students and colleagues from Ramjas College from when I taught there, during the years 1974 to 1994 Dear readers: this book is a selection of my articles and… Read More Closing the Circle
Christian Edwards The 2025 Nobel Prize in literature has been awarded to László Krasznahorkai, a Hungarian writer who said his dark and difficult novels aim to examine reality “to the point of madness.” Announcing the prize at a ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden, on Thursday, the Nobel Committee praised Krasznahorkai “for his compelling and visionary oeuvre… Read More Nobel Prize in literature goes to Hungarian novelist for work confronting ‘apocalyptic terror’
NB: This book changed my life. I read it when I was seventeen. Along with Palestine, Vietnam’s valiant struggle against American imperialism was the epic of our generation. I will salute the Vietnamese people till the end of my days. DS “There are few parallels with the war in Vietnam. It has lasted nearly two… Read More Against the crime of silence: Bertrand Russell’s War Crimes in Vietnam (1967)
After the truth-shower 