To rescue Kahlo from the clutches of the corporate art market, we need to acknowledge the overt and covert political dimensions of the work, demands GAVIN O’TOOLE
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Letters From Latin America
Review of fiction by Argentinean writer Sergio Chejfec and Chilean Benjamin Labatut and poetry by Argentinean Alejandra Pizarnik and Chilean Vicente Huidobro
If you can see past the relentless commodification you will be rewarded by enormously powerful work, suggests JENNY MITCHELL
CHRIS SEARLE revels in the one-off collaboration between an American polymath and a British Muslim, and detects the presence of their revolutionary forebear
GORDON PARSONS revels in an ebullient production of Shakespeare’s magical comedy
BRENT CUTLER welcomes a thoughtful analysis of the Erdogan regime, viewed through the evolving history of a neighbourhood in Istanbul
GORDON PARSONS regrets the price, but is dazzled by an outstandingly ambitious study of the way art restoration in particular, and culture in general was weaponised by the Nazis
THE ARGENTINE Sergio Chejfec is one of those rare writers who defy categorisation and his essay Notes Toward a Pamphlet (Ugly Duckling Press, £8), skilfully translated by Whitney DeVos, is a good example of why.
Part essay, part short story, as well as a kind of philosophical treaty on poetry, this short text explores with wit and originality the life and creative process of Argentine poet Samich, who often travels by train from the provinces to the working-class outskirts of Buenos Aires.
There he lives in a humble house with a small garden with two trees, under which he often sits to compose his never-published verses. A poet-guru with a cult following, he puts into question the very act of writing, turning the quietness of his suburban life into a work of art.
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A ghost story by Mexican Ave Barrera, a Surrealist poetry collection by Peruvian Cesar Moro, and a manifesto-poem on women’s labour and capitalist havoc by Peruvian Valeria Roman Marroquin
JOHN GREEN is fascinated by a very readable account of Britain’s involvement in South America