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Reminder of poetry’s possibilities and responsibilities
21st century poetry with Andy Croft

THE ALGERIAN war of independence from 1954 to 1962 was one of the bloodiest post-1945 liberation struggles.

Characterised by civilian massacres and the widespread use of torture, it led to the death and displacement of two million people.

It was also the first major conflict since the Spanish civil war to mobilise a generation of writers and artists to protest against the conduct of the war, most notably in Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth and Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers.

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