Given the power of the live experience, MIK SABIERS recommends Jon Spencer’s new album
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Timely insights into the continuing significance of John Berger
Reviews of T.P. Orchestre Poly-Rythmo, Tamikrest, and Dub Colossus
The bard celebrates two other fine practitioners of the art, and laments a lost brewer
This right-wing conspiracy theory is used to justify the coercive measures against gender, race and labour rights that best serve capitalism, attests GAVIN O’TOOLE
KENNY MONROSE recommends a new exhibition that highlights the significance of Black British music
ANGUS REID is bowled over by an exuberant film about the making of Keith Jarrett’s legendary concert
A Writer of Our Time
by Joshua Sperling
(Verso, £20)
WHEN John Berger passed away in January last year, all of his obituaries invariably started with a litany of vocations that could be ascribed to him — art critic, essayist, novelist, presenter, poet and still more. In this erudite and engaging biography, Joshua Sperling appraises that extraordinarily eclectic oeuvre in its entirety.
Rather than tracing his career chronologically, the book is structured around the concerns and questions that animated Berger throughout his life, such as the relation of art to revolution and society and the trials of being a committed artist.
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