Rachel Polonsky
It’s Me, Eddie
Limonov: A Novel
By Emmanuel Carrère (Translated by John Lambert)
Allen Lane/The Penguin Press 340pp £20
‘I’ve noticed that the Russian media is significantly cutting back the flow of information about what is happening in Donbass’, the dissident writer Edward Limonov recorded on LiveJournal on 15 September. ‘Apparently there is an order not to destroy the illusion of a continuing truce.’ He then listed the number of civilians killed the previous day by Kiev’s artillery (twenty), noting the places in eastern Ukraine where there was fighting, the build-up of Kiev’s forces at Donetsk airport and the launch of US-led military exercises in the Lviv region. ‘So the truce looks like war’, he ended, signing off the weblog in his habitual style: ‘That was the morning sermon … I am Edward Limonov.’
Limonov, now in his early seventies, prophesied conflict in Ukraine decades ago. There is a YouTube clip of him in 1992, after the collapse of the USSR, orating in the streets about how nationalism would lead to violence, demanding to know why Crimea, Kharkov and Donbass should belong to Ukraine
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
Knowledge of Sufism increased markedly with the publication in 1964 of The Sufis, by Idries Shah. Nowadays his writings, much like his father’s, are dismissed for their Orientalism and inaccuracy.
@fitzmorrissey investigates who the Shahs really were.
Fitzroy Morrissey - Sufism Goes West
Fitzroy Morrissey: Sufism Goes West - Empire’s Son, Empire’s Orphan: The Fantastical Lives of Ikbal and Idries Shah by Nile Green
literaryreview.co.uk
Rats have plagued cities for centuries. But in Baltimore, researchers alighted on one surprising solution to the problem of rat infestation: more rats.
@WillWiles looks at what lessons can be learned from rat ecosystems – for both rats and humans.
Will Wiles - Puss Gets the Boot
Will Wiles: Puss Gets the Boot - Rat City: Overcrowding and Urban Derangement in the Rodent Universes of John B ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Twisters features destructive tempests and blockbuster action sequences.
@JonathanRomney asks what the real danger is in Lee Isaac Chung's disaster movie.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/eyes-of-the-storm