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
Are iPhones ruining children's lives? A prominent American psychologist thinks so.
@tiffanyjenkins is not so sure:
Tiffany Jenkins - The Smartphone Pandemic
Tiffany Jenkins: The Smartphone Pandemic - The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an...
literaryreview.co.uk
India's 'festival of democracy', or general election, begins next month. Like every good festival, it looks likely to have its fair share of murders and arrests.
@OwenBennettJon probes the state of democracy in India:
Owen Bennett-Jones - New Delhi Confidential
Owen Bennett-Jones: New Delhi Confidential - The Incarcerations: BK-16 and the Search for Democracy in India by Alpa Shah
literaryreview.co.uk
Where is the world's newest narcostate and why is it thriving?
@AdamBrookesWord investigates Asia's meth mecca.
Adam Brookes - Meth Comes to Myanmar
Adam Brookes: Meth Comes to Myanmar - Narcotopia: In Search of the Asian Drug Cartel That Outwitted the CIA by Patrick Winn
literaryreview.co.uk