Fownhope’s Heart of Oak Society traces its roots to the age of friendly societies, when communities provided their own safety net. Its anniversary celebrations reveal a tradition still very much alive, says MARK SEDDON
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British books and the crisis
Why is there so little literature that deals with the reality of the recession on our shelves here in Britain, asks SOLOMON HUGHES
ANGUS REID explains the significance of Cuba’s egalitarian in letter and spirit Family Code and the pertinent lessons it holds for democracies anywhere in the world
Special report by PEOPLE’S WORLD
NICK WRIGHT considers how the isolation of Israel and a new film on the controversial Italian communist leader are creating new reference points for Italy’s left
CARLOS MARTINEZ says Cuba’s achievements in the face of a criminal blockade are startling, but the island’s future if the United States succeeds in crushing it looks bleak
AMNON BROWNFIELD STEIN reports that far-right MPs who mobbed the event organised by Hadash may have helped raise awareness of the brutality of the Israeli right
I HOPE the BBC adaptation of Sally Rooney’s Normal People goes well — Rooney’s novels are deservedly popular, so the series could be good. But it is hard to adapt fiction to TV drama. I worry how Rooney’s deadpan way of describing emotional turmoil will translate to TV.
The forthcoming series having 12 parts might also stretch the story to meet the “box-set” format for marketing rather than aesthetic reasons. Still, the team behind the adaptation is strong: Rooney herself is writing the script. The directors are Lenny Abrahamson, who made a good film from the novel “Room” and Hettie McDonald who has a long, effective TV drama career.
Normal People takes a couple from teens to twenties in an on-off love affair. Rooney has been rightly celebrated as a voice for “millennials” because she can get across all the anguish, anxiety and confusion of young adulthood — including how people can hurt each other when they mean to do the opposite.
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CHRIS MOSS joins the hunt in Argentina for the works of Poland’s most enigmatic exile
KEN COCKBURN guides us through a survey of Chekov’s early short fiction, and the groundwork it laid for his later masterpieces
KEN COCKBURN relishes the memoir of a translator, but wonders whether the autobiography underlying the impulse would make a better book
At the very moment Britain faces poverty, housing and climate crises requiring radical solutions, the liberal press promotes ideologically narrow books while marginalising authors who offer the most accurate understanding of change, writes IAN SINCLAIR