
Malambo kings
Laborde, a town three hundred miles northwest of Buenos Aires in Argentina’s Côrdoba province, was founded in 1903, originally under the name Las Liebres. Populated at the time by Italian immigrants, it now has six thousand inhabitants and is situated in an oasis of wheat and corn dotted with mills. The wheat and corn brought...

Sloane Crosley: Sparkling in the dark
Sloane Crosley’s debut novel The Clasp is the story of three college friends – Kezia, Victor and Nathanial – each of whom is reassessing their friendships, careers and love lives as they turn 30. Written in the style of a comedy caper, while also owing much of its inspiration to Guy de Maupassant’s famous short...

Ahmed Fagih: After the revolution
In 2008, Ethan Chorin’s Translating Libya, an anthology of short literary works by Libyan authors he had encountered whilst working as a US diplomat in Tripoli, shed light on hidden aspects of Libyan life and exposed the rich cultural heritage of a country that in Western eyes was solely dominated by vast, barren desert and...

Phyllis Nagy: Carol and me
Carol, starring Cate Blanchett as a wealthy 1950s New York housewife and mother who risks her place in society by embarking on an intense affair with Rooney Mara’s shop girl, is a hot tip for big prizes as the film industry gears up for its annual awards season. The film, directed by Todd Haynes, is...

One moonlit night
Under a harvest moon FBI agent John Connolly eased his beat-up Plymouth into a parking space along Wollaston Beach. Behind him the water stirred, and further off, the Boston skyline sparkled. The shipbuilding city of Quincy, bordering Boston to the south, was a perfect location for the kind of meeting the agent had in mind....

Not a girl, alas
Our times are times of tremendous change, maturation and unique creative vibrancy for the theatre. Productions have multidimensionality, a plurality of voices and of centres of balance which enthrals us, inspires us, truly lures us to share in the dramatic experience, be more and more an integral, engaged part of a stage that is no...