A C Grayling
The Country of the Word
Susan Sontag’s reputation stands high in both her homelands – the United States of America and the republic of letters. She was a writer of choice skills, she was absolutely sincere in her commitment to ideals of justice and right in politics and international affairs, and all her work is animated by a strong controlling intelligence that was forthright, clear, and committed. Every one of these qualities is fully present in her last collection of essays, even though – as her editors, and her son David Rieff in his personal preface, tell us – it is likely that if she had lived she would have wished to polish them further.
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'The authors do not shrink from spelling out the scale of the killings when the Rhodesians made long-distance raids on guerrilla camps in Mozambique and Zambia.'
Xan Smiley on how Rhodesia became Zimbabwe.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/what-the-secret-agent-saw
'Thirkell was a product of her time and her class. For her there are no sacred cows, barring those that win ribbons at the Barchester Agricultural.'
The novelist Angela Thirkell is due a revival, says Patricia T O'Conner (£).
https://literaryreview.co.uk/good-gad
'Only in Britain, perhaps, could spy chiefs – conventionally viewed as masters of subterfuge – be so highly regarded as ethical guides.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/the-spy-who-taught-me