Alert to the energies of small words and large dogs, this wry tale by the republican revolutionary is free from ‘Irish shams’The Night HuntIn the morning, in the dark, When the stars began to blunt, By the wall of Barna Park Dogs I heard and saw them hunt All the parish dogs were there, All the dogs for miles around, Teeming up behind a hare, In the...

Ordinary Ukrainians and their haunting stories are the heroes of the Scottish reporter’s wonderful hymn to an embattled nationIn the run-up to Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine, Jen Stout was in Moscow. The mood there was venomous. Russian television broadcast non-stop propaganda about “Ukrainian Nazis”. In a bar a drinker called Andrei told Stout...

Despite the painter’s lack of ‘epistolary fluency’, this collection of his writings – from drunken interviews to begging letters – offers some insight into his working methods and private lifeFrancis Bacon composed his autobiography in paint, not words. His portraiture laid bare the skull beneath the skin, the beast pregnantly housed inside the human...

In our age of misinformation, this unsparing study of the many ways in which we can be deceived and how to counter the pernicious effects couldn’t be more timely“What is truth, said jesting Pilate – and would not stay for an answer.” Thus philosopher Francis Bacon dramatised the opening of his famous Of Truth essay. Every human being alive, he thought,...

The Quincunx author’s sixth book, the story of a family in crisis in an authoritarian regime, is exquisitely plotted and satisfying For readers of a certain age, Charles Palliser’s name is so deeply associated with his massive debut novel, The Quincunx, a literary mystery that was on every bedside table in the 1990s, that you would be forgiven for...

The spoken word artist and podcaster’s hybrid of social history and rallying cry is heartfelt, if occasionally hectoringGeorge Mpanga, better known as George the Poet, is a British-Ugandan spoken word artist, poet and rapper. In 2019 he was offered, and turned down, an MBE, a gesture indicative of his progressive politics. He is best known for his award-winning...