PAUL DONOVAN is chilled by the contemporary resonance of Harper Lee’s coming of age tale amidst racism and white supremacy in this excellent production
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Yannis Ritsos: a true poet of his time
Poetry with Andy Croft
GEOFF BOTTOMS recommends the unashamedly light-hearted escapism on offer in this stage version of the 1963 film
Full of mysterious religious references and radical sound design, the Scottish duo’s new offering is candidate for album of the year, suggests SIMON DUFF
MARY CONWAY revels in a powerful reminder that human lives are not defined by physical perfection
PAUL DONOVAN recommends the fine performances in this account of the pre-war meeting between the US president and the British king
TECLYN AROD relishes an intimate celebration of jazz improvisation that mixes local and national musicians
The Greek communist poet Yiannis Ritsos (1909-1990) was one of the greatest European poets of the 20th century. He wrote more than 100 books — poems, plays, fiction, translations and essays. His work has been translated into over 40 different languages.
He won the Lenin Peace Prize and was nominated nine times for the Nobel Prize for Literature. Pablo Picasso drew his picture. Louis Aragon called Ritsos “the greatest poet of our age.”
Twenty-five years after his death, Ritsos’s poetry remains largely unavailable in Britain. Following the publication earlier this year of Romiosini, a book-length poem about the Greek communist partisans in the second world war, Smokestack Books has now published another epic poem by Ritsos, Epitaphios (£8.95).
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