Elizabeth Imlay
American Policy Which is Cruel and Vile
Out of the Night: Writings From Death Row
By Marie Mulvey Roberts and Benjamin Zephaniah (eds)
New Clarion Press 245pp £23.50 hbk £9.95 pbk
On the cover of Out of the Night is a weeping face. Or is it a wax death mask? At its edges pink drops fall towards a shadowy pillow, above which they float as if in some exquisitely painful dream. It seems the perfect metaphor for the death-in-life state of the condemned prisoner, which in thirty-eight of the fifty-three jurisdictions of America can be prolonged for an indefinite number of years.
It is hard enough just to read the sorrow and horror condensed into these pages, and credit should be given to the compilers for the dedicated intelligence with which they sifted, chose and arranged writings by prisoners, their families and the pen friends they have gained through an organisation called
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
The Soviet Union might seem the last place that the art duo Gilbert & George would achieve success. Yet as the communist regime collapsed, that’s precisely what happened.
@StephenSmithWDS wonders how two East End gadflies infiltrated the Eastern Bloc.
Stephen Smith - From Russia with Lucre
Stephen Smith: From Russia with Lucre - Gilbert & George and the Communists by James Birch
literaryreview.co.uk
The dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in August 1945 has long been regarded as a historical watershed – but did it mark the start of a new era or the culmination of longer-term trends?
Philip Snow examines the question.
Philip Snow - Death from the Clouds
Philip Snow: Death from the Clouds - Rain of Ruin: Tokyo, Hiroshima, and the Surrender of Japan by Richard Overy
literaryreview.co.uk
Coleridge was fifty-four lines into ‘Kubla Khan’ before a knock on the door disturbed him. He blamed his unfinished poem on ‘a person on business from Porlock’.
Who was this arch-interrupter? Joanna Kavenna goes looking for the person from Porlock.
Joanna Kavenna - Do Not Disturb
Joanna Kavenna: Do Not Disturb
literaryreview.co.uk