RICHARD HAMILTON & POP ART

The news of the death of the British artist Richard Hamilton came a few short weeks after I had been researching the roots of the Pop Art movement for a forthcoming book project. Its a fascinating story which took me a while to understand and piece together.

It begins with the little-known Independent Group (1952-55) whose history is documented in this excellent website.

‘The Independent Group looked at, discussed, analysed, wrote about, designed, built and assembled a galaxy of highly significant work exploring contemporary culture ‘as found’. Using a range of sources including the pages of science-fiction magazines, Jackson Pollock’s paintings, Hollywood film, helicopter design, the streets of London’s East End and modernist architecture the Independent Group created a radical approach to looking and working with visual culture.’

Their first meeting in 1952,  held at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, focused primarily on the imagery of popular American culture, particularly mass advertising. The co-founder of the group – artist and sculptor Eduardo Paolozzi – presented a lecture featuring a series of collages he had put together in Paris during 1947 and 1949 which he titled Bunk! This included this 1947 collage entitled I was a Rich Man’s Plaything which included the word POP.

According to Wikipedia:

‘Subsequent coinage of the complete term "pop art" was made by John McHale for the ensuing movement in 1954. "Pop art" as a moniker was then used in discussions by IG members in the Second Session of the IG in 1955, and the specific term "pop art" first appeared in published print in an article by IG members Alison and Peter Smithson in Arc, 1956. However, the term is often credited to British art critic/curator, Lawrence Alloway in a 1958 essay titled The Arts and the Mass Media, although the term he uses is "popular mass culture". Nevertheless, Alloway was one of the leading critics to defend the inclusion of the imagery found in mass culture in fine art.’

Paolozzi’s earlier contribution has become overshadowed by this image, Richard Hamilton’s collage Just What Is It That Makes Today’s Homes So Different, So Appealing, created in 1956 for the catalogue of an seminal exhibition entitled ‘This Is Tomorrow’ and used on the exhibition’s poster. The core of the exhibition was put together by the IG Group and was staged at London’s Whitechapel Art Gallery. A detailed analysis of all the elements that make up this collage can be found here. The original work is now in the Kunsthall Tubingen in Germany.
Around that time. Hamilton defined what Pop art meant to him:  "Popular (designed for a mass audience); transient (short-term solution); expendable (easily forgotten); low cost; mass produced; young (aimed at youth); witty; sexy; gimmicky; glamorous; and last but not least, Big Business."
The pioneering work of the  IG Group and of Richard Hamilton in particular laid the seeds for younger artists, principally Peter Blake. The launch of Pop Art in Britain is widely considered to be the January 1961 ‘Young Contemporaries’ Exhibition at the Royal College of Art, which established the reputations of Blake, David Hockney, R.B. Kitaj and their lesser-known contemporaries Peter Phillips, Allen Jones and Derek Boshier.
The term ‘pop music’ originated in Britain in the mid-1950s, referring to rock and roll. The marriage between Pop Music and Pop Art was consummated in 1967 with Peter Blake’s cover for the Beatles’ ‘Sgt Pepper’ album. He would go on to do covers for Paul Weller, Ian Drury and Oasis. The target, a symbol used by many Pop artists, became an iconic Mod symbol, rendered in red, white and blue.

[Above: An original promotional card for a 25-minute film on Richard Hamilton, directed by James Scott and produced for the British Arts Council [Generalist Archive]
Richard Hamilton’s work also crossed over from Pop Art to Pop. Above is one of the iconic images of the 1960s. It shows a young Mick Jagger and the art dealer Robert Fraser handcuffed in the back of a police van during their trial for drug offences in 1967. According to a 1999 article by Jonathon Jones, Hamilton copied one of the photographs and turned it into an artwork ‘by adding real metal for the handcuffs and a replica of the police van’s window frame. The piece is now in the Tate Gallery.

Richard Hamilton, Swingeing London III, 1972
This screenprint was sold by Sotheby’s in March 2006)for £64,800 . Source: www.thinkingmanagers.com
Hamilton later designed the cover for the Beatles’ ‘White Album’.

Left: One of Hamilton's more recent works, Shock and Awe
See Also:
Richard Hamilton ‘great inspiration’ says Bryan Ferry
Artist’s painstaking collage led the way for pop art
Richard Hamilton, the original pop artist, dies at 89

CULT BOOKS1: PATRICIA DUNCKER, ANDREI MAKINE, ANDREY KURKOV

Hallucinating Foucault by Patricia Duncker, which I finished at 3 o’clock in the morning, is a wonderful, wonderful novel which I urge you to read. It concerns a young student doing her degree at Cambridge on a glamorous and scandalous French novelist named Paul Michel. Little does the protagonist and the reader know where this will lead and I intend to reveal little more than that as the book is full of genuine surprises. It touched me deeply.

The Life of an Unknown Man  by Andrei Makine is of similar rank. This story begins in Paris with a Russian writer in exile whose girlfriend has just left him. In some despair, he decides to return to St Petersburg only to discover both the New Russia and the dark secrets of the past. This is very strong meat indeed, once again full of unexpected developments. It will bring you to tears. Makine is a wonderful novelist with a whole body of work worth exploring.

Death and the Penguin by Andrey Kurkov is a grand example of that strand of Russian literature which combines the dark and the absurd. How is this for a set-up. Once again we have a lonely writer whose girlfriend has left him. The zoo was giving hungry animals away to anyone able to feed them so Viktor adopted a king penguin he names Misha, to keep him company. From such strange beginnings, Kurkov creates a tale of humour which becomes overshadowed by menace and tragedy. Not a happy read but an intriguing one.

CULT BOOKS2: FREDERIC PROKOSCH, DAN BILLANY, CHRISTOPHER PRIEST, DAVID LEAVITT

 

More remarkable reads and great discoveries.

‘The Asiatics’ by Frederic Prokosch is described on the cover by Andre Gide as ‘An astonishing feat of the imagination’, by Thomas Mann as ‘A most brilliant and original achievement’ and is also lauded by Albert Camus. High Praise indeed.

First published in 1935, this is that rare thing, a ‘travel novel’, about a young American who hitch-hikes across Asia, from Lebanon to the southern frontiers of China. According to the blurb, ‘he experiences drug smuggling in Trebizond, imprisonment in Khorasan, the perils of the Persian salt marshes, Baluchi bandits’ and many other remarkable adventures. A strange and wonderful adventure, hugely enjoyable. This Faber edition, published in 1983, ahs a cover designed by Pentagram and illustrated by Paul Leith.

Prokosch (1906-1929) is an extraordinary and interesting figure who wrote a long list of novels, memoirs, poems and books of criticism. He was a mysterious character, obsessed by tennis, squash and lepidoptery, who was involved at least twice in forgeries for profit.

See the interesting Wikipedia entry. the essay entitled ‘Collecting Fredric Prokosch, A Writer and a Minor Literary Scoundrel’ on the blog ‘The Books In My Life’, and his obituary in the New York Times.

‘The Trap’ by Dan Billany must be one of the most remarkable novels written about World War 2. Its power came as complete surprise. The early part of the book is set in Cornwall,  and concerns  a working class family whose daughter falls in love with a young man who is called up and sent to fight in the desert against Rommel’s army. Much of the book echoes Billany’s own wartime experiences; he was killed in mysterious circumstances in 1944. There is a great site and bio about him: ‘Dan Billany: Hull’s Lost Hero.

A Dream of Wessex by Christopher Priest is a wonderful piece of British sci-fi by an author perhaps best known for his novel The Prestige, which was made into a great film by Christopher Nolan. Lauded within the sci-fi world, his string of 11 remarkable novels are worth investigating. His work, steeped in the grand tradition of H.G. Wells and other British sci-fi masters, is genuinely original. This book concerns the Ridpath project, in which volunteers are transported into a strange alternative world. Priest is still very active as a novelist and journalist and you can find all about him on his website www.christopher-priest.co.uk

While England Sleeps by David Leavitt, set in England in the 1930s, concerns a gay relationship between Brian Botsford, a young upper-class writer and Edward Phelan, an idealistic Communist Party member who works on the London Underground. It brings to life the feeling of that time leading up to the Spanish civil war and explores in graphic detail their sexual relationship. Its a moving and haunting story that touches the heart.

Leavitt, an American writer, was sued in 1994-5 over this book by the poet Stephen Spender, who claimed that he had plagiarised his book ‘While England Sleeps’ and fictionalised his life. As a result, the first edition of this book was pulped. Leavitt discusses the lawsuit in a special preface in this  revised edition, which was republished by  Houghton Mifflin. He is currently a Professor at the Department of English at the University of Florida, where his cv can be found.

9/11 COUGH

Back in September 2007 The Generalist reported the following:

'The 9/11 Cover-Up: Thousands of New Yorkers were endangered by WTC debris—and government malfeasance', is the title of an article by Michael Mason, in a special issue of Discover magazine on the health effects of 9/11 on the people of the city. Issue also includes interview with Philip Landrigan, the doctor leading the research on this. Extract as follows:

Q: Your department is monitoring the health effects from the collapse of the World Trade Center. When the towers collapsed, two million tons of dust containing cement, asbestos, glass, lead, and carcinogens rained down on lower Manhattan. Yet less than a week later, the EPA said it was safe to go there and breathe the air. Now we know that erroneous assessment may have put thousands of people at risk for serious chronic health problems, and even death.

A: [EPA Director] Christine Todd Whitman's statement that the air in Manhattan was safe to breathe was stupid and ill-considered because she was making a very strong assertion with almost no data. I wondered how she could say this—it's like a doctor telling a patient that the patient is healthy before he's done any tests.'

Now listen to tonight’s ‘Crossing Continents’ on BBC Radio 4

See: Health Effects Arising from the September 11th attacks on Wikipedia

More than 30,000 police officers, firefighters and emergency medical technicians who toiled in the smoldering wreckage at Ground Zero suffer physical or mental health problems today, health officials say.

- North Jersey.com

HEAR US: Downtown Manhattan residents call on Presidential candidates to pay attention to post-9/11 health effects. Many who work and live south of 14th St. suffer some of the same symptoms as firefighters present at 9/11.

(Christine Lin The Epoch Times 2008)

SEE PREVIOUS POSTS:

TWIN TOWERS: MOVING STORIES & SPECTACULAR STUNTS

9/11 REVISITED

THE GREEN ENERGY REVOLUTION

Source: The Solar Energy Revolution Will Be Televised

"It will take a technology revolution to build the green economy, but this is already under way. Much of the technology necessary to create low-carbon prosperity is available and is being developed – and costs are falling fast. The question is whether Britain will be in the vanguard of developing and using it, reaping the rewards in exports and jobs, or whether, as often in the past, it will stumble along behind more far-seeing economies."

(Image from Teahugger.com)

Regular readers of The Generalist will be aware that I have been banging on about this topic for a long time. In fact, my epiphany on the subject dates back to 1997 when I first met energy efficiency guru Amory Lovins [See numerous Previous Posts. Search under Earthed].

Since that time, I developed the view that what was unfolding was a new ‘industrial revolution’ which was going to lead us away from the age of oil as a cluster of new technologies converged to transform our world.

I felt certain because I had written an early extensive high-profile article in the Telegraph magazine about the previous such event – the digital revolution -  in 1994. There were such obvious similarities. Silicon Valley thought so too. They had experienced the spreadsheet betting on start-ups that had characterised their world and they were quick to invest in the new green start-ups that were proliferating.

I spoke to many top editors to try and persuade them to produce a special issue of their supplements, if necessary with sponsorship, to draw together the thinking on this topic. I spoke to The Times magazine, to The Telegraph and most recently the Financial Times – with no success.

Now, finally, The Telegraph,  with funding from Shell has, at last produced what I imagined. See: The Age of Energy – The Green Economy. Its full of the usual suspects, of course, who will now race to be seen to be part of this new initiative.

Source: Dowry culture and the green revoluition

Britain is a long way behind many other countries in this global transformation – a radical change that offers real prospects for creating a new sustainable economy, substantial employment and some hope for the future.

The media carry a lot of the blame for this, mired as they are in old-fashioned ‘green lifestyle’ perspectives and arguments, blissfully unaware of the scale and nature of the radical changes that are now being ushered in by the global financial turmoil.

Lets hope they now recognise the paradigm shift in thinking required to embrace the possibilities inherent in this new revolution. It’s time to get with the programme.

                     Portugal’s Clean, Green, Hi-Tech Energy Revolution

CHECK OUT CHARLES SHAAR MURRAY

Charlie is a number one, A-list geezer who I’ve known off and on for almost four decades. He first came to prominence as one of  the wild children of School Kids Oz, graduated to the NME academy of new rock writing, hobnobbing with some of the greatest names around and writing extensive chronicles from the frontline of all the madness. The blues were in his bones. Blast Furnace and the Heatwaves was his band. As I recall, he generally wore a black leather jacket and had an bit of an afro thing going on. Words spilled out of him, long digressive thought waves, always worth listening to. Looking back on it, we were all crazy at that time, full of jumped-up juice and ready for action.

Charlie has produced two stone-cold classic books; ‘Cross-Town Traffic: Jimi Hendrix and Post-war Pop’ and ‘Boogie Man: The Adventures of John Lee Hooker in the American Twentieth Century’. An archive of his music journalism can be found on the wonderful Rock’s Back Pages site and there is a collection of his  journalism still available called ‘Shots From The Hip’. He’s done loads of other stuff, which is covered in Wikipedia.

So now we come to the purpose of this post – Charlie’s first novel ‘The Hellhound Sample’, recently published by HeadPress. Briefly its the story of James ‘Blue’ Moon, an old black blues guy, not long for this world, who gets it into his head that, for his last project on earth, he wants to make an album with his daughter Venetia ( a major music diva), his grandson Calvin Holland (rap producer with a multi-million dollar clothing business) and Mick Hudson, an English rock guitarist, who idolised Moon, learnt all his licks and has been thick with the old man for decades. Needless to say there’s a big back story behind this family and their intertwined fate and relationships. Making the album proves to be quite an adventure.

To cut to the quick, this must be one of the best music novels ever written. Its a totally assured and wonderfully realised piece of writing. What makes it so good: great premise, skilful plotting, full-blown characters that you really care about, brilliant set-piece scenes full of telling detail, believable dialogue. Charlie’s deep appreciation and understanding of music gives the book complete authenticity. In short, its a great read. The author’s end notes suggest that there’s more novels to come.

Someone somewhere will be smart enough to buy the film rights. In the meantime, waste no time in getting your hands on this little beauty. Hats off Charlie, you’ve pulled off a BIG ONE.

PS Look out for Charlie’s band  Crosstown Lightnin’ and check in with latest developments at his excellent website.

 

CASSETTE REVIVAL

“I only listen to cassettes” – Thurston Moore/Sonic Youth

Its been more than four years since my Previous Post ‘The Death of the Cassette’, reported the decision of a major UK retailer to stop selling them, a move that triggered an emotional outcry. Now, thanks to Emil, The Generalist can report on the fact the fact that there is a thriving underground world of cassette releases, out of sight of the main stream media.

This Is Not A Mixtape by Marc Hogan on the Pitchfork website. This extensive article does a grand job of analysing the scene and listing some of the major bands and labels releasing them

Paradoxically, it may have taken the technology of the 00s for the technology of the 80s to really make a comeback. Today's cassette culture is both a reaction to and a product of digital media, the Internet, and downloading, says Shawn Reed, who runs Iowa City-based cassette label Night People. On one hand, tapes are "the embrace of something old and outdated, intentionally obscure and marginal, almost pointless in some way," he acknowledges. On the other hand, the Internet is a place where cassettes are "allowed to flourish."

NP126 Sewn Leather- “No Need for Reverse Talking” C26 on the Night-People label.

101 Cassette Labels by Ceci Moss on the Rhizome website is a wonderful place to view the outpouring of creative work on cassettes.

‘In the age of GarageBand, Myspace, and file sharing, it may come as a surprise to some that cassette labels are still very much in operation. Tapes now function as a basic form of patronage between musicians and their audience; since a physical format is no longer necessary to send or receive music, these objects become a gesture of support. Tapes act to make tangible the connection between a creator and their listeners, and the attentive and often handmade packaging speaks to this exchange.’

TWO BOOKS

Mix Tape: The Art of Cassette Culture by Thurston Moore [Universe Publishing. 2004]

Love Is A Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song At A Time by Rob Sheffield [Crown Publishing Group, 2007]

SEE ALSO: Cassette Culture on Wikipedia

Cassette Tape Culture on Design Boom

Hasbro cassette transformer, 1984/Cassette wallet by Marcella Foschi

 

 Reconsidering The Revival of Cassette Tape Revival by Calum Marsh on the Pop Matters website. Marsh is not in favour of this trend. The extensive comments under his piece examine many arguments for and against his position.

‘At best, the cassette revival is merely a vacuous fad of no genuine value; but at worst, it’s a confused, regressive cultural misstep more dangerous than most would care to admit. There is danger here, and despite the intentions of its advocates, this is a trend that’s less a tribute to the DIY mentality than a betrayal of its basic premise.’

Make your own virtual cassette with Cassette Generator

Two other links which you  might also find interesting:

Excellent essay about the democratization of music production:
http://www.littlewhiteearbuds.com/feature/everything-popular-is-wrong-making-it-in-electronic-music-despite-democratization/

An audio lecture by Bill Drummond of the KLF on the end of recorded music:
http://freshonthenet.co.uk/drummond.mp3

2011 YOUTH RIOTS

West Midlands Police appeal to the public by displaying pictures of suspected rioters outside the Bull Ring shopping centre in Birmingham England Friday Aug. 12, 2011. (AP / Rui Vieira)

Two very strong pieces on the London riots – Paul Lewis’ first hand account of a journey through the riot zones and Jack Shenker’s broader context piece about youth riots around the world + GANG MAPS of London

 

 

UK riots: Paul Lewis's five-day journey

Paul Lewis charts the journey from the fatal shooting of Mark Duggan to civil unrest on a grand scale

‘It was just before 9pm on Sunday when I saw hundreds of youths head to the G Mantella jewellery store on Enfield high street, six miles north of where the disturbances had begun.

Police had earlier warned residents that the suburb would be on the "frontline" that night and filled a Tesco car park full of police horses in anticipation.

By late afternoon, a police car had been attacked in Enfield, and a handful of shop windows broken. The attack on the jewellers was over in seconds.

Minutes later I was stood on a side-street, where young men were knocking down garden walls and collecting bricks to hurl at police. I used my bottled water to wash the bleeding hand of a boy who looked about 12.

This was the opening salvo in what would turn into the second night of disturbances.’

 

 

How youth-led revolts shook elites around the world – Jack Shenker

From Athens to Cairo and Spain to Santiago, old certainties are being challenged after the Arab spring and financial crises

"Historically in any country and in any context it's young people who are at the core of protests. But at this moment in history we're seeing a shared sense of deprivation among the young, a shared sense of there being a democracy deficit across the world. In all these places neoliberal economic policies have intensified their hold and affected young people most directly, young people looking for employment, study, prospects. I think it has cut young people to the bone, and they're confronting it directly."

-Priyamvada Gopal, an English professor at Cambridge,

"Today there may not be a single unifying ideology of change among global youth protests of the sort that united people in 1968, but there is a common ideology embedded within our shared model of organisation – no egos, no celebrities, no one telling anyone else what to do and no one willing to take orders – one that lends itself to online social media and has captured people's imaginations." - Steve Taylor, a campaigner with UK Uncut.

UK gangs thrive in August riots

By SHAWN POGATCHNIK, Associated Press

Virtually every spot on the English map that suffered riots is home turf to one or multiple gangs, according to an interactive online map called London Street Gangs and related gang-mapping efforts by the Metropolitan Police and University of Bedfordshire youth-crime expert John Pitts.

One riot spot, Enfield in north London where a Sony distribution center was ransacked, hosts a half-dozen active gangs including Dem Africans, Red Brick Crew and Gun Man Down. The south London borough of Croydon, scene of the worst arson attacks and the fatal shooting of a 26-year-old man, is the power base for the Don't Say Nothin gang.

SEE MAPS OF LONDON STREET GANGS

Camila Batmanghelidjh: Caring costs – but so do riots

These rioters feel they don't actually belong to the community. For years, they’ve felt cut adrift from society

‘Working at street level in London, over a number of years, many of us have been concerned about large groups of young adults creating their own parallel antisocial communities with different rules. The individual is responsible for their own survival because the established community is perceived to provide nothing. Acquisition of goods through violence is justified in neighbourhoods where the notion of dog eat dog pervades and the top dog survives the best. The drug economy facilitates a parallel subculture with the drug dealer producing more fiscally efficient solutions than the social care agencies who are too under-resourced to compete.’

See: Kids Company

LEE MILLER & FARLEY FARM

Had the great privilege and pleasure yesterday of meeting Antony Penrose (thanks to Daisy) who gave us a guided tour round Farley Farm House in Chiddingly, East Sussex.

This was the home of the remarkable photographer Lee Miller and her husband Roland Penrose, the leading British Surrealist, co-founder with Herbert Read of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, and biographer of Picasso.

During their time, the house became a meeting place for some of the greatest art figures of the age – including Man Ray, Max Ernst, Joan Miro and Pablo Picasso.

Antony Penrose holding a picture of himself as a small boy with Pablo Picasso. He has written a children’s book entitled The Boy Who Bit Picasso

The beautiful half-timbered house has now become a museum but it still has a cozy lived-in feel and the spirits of those times still lingers in the air.

Each room and corridor is stuffed with treasures. Beautiful surrealistic paintings, displays of Lee’s photographs, rich libraries of books and hundreds of wonderful works of ethnographic art, objet trouvé and personal belongings.

I was privileged to be shown the Visitor’s Book which the above artists had signed, often adding quirky pen drawings or full-colour artworks.

A visit to Farley Farm House is truly an inspiring experience which I urge you to explore. The House is open for guided tours from April to October; the tour dates left for this year are:

August 21st/Sept 4th and 18th/Oct 2nd and 16th

It is also open on the following dates during the Chiddingly Festival: Sept 24th and 25th; October 1st and 2nd

No need to pre-book. Full details at the website: www.farleyfarmhouse.co.uk

 

This is a truly remarkable and moving documentary by Antony Penrose about his mother’s life (available through Amazon and on Lovefilm)

It was only after his mother’s death that Antony discovered in the attic a huge cache of Lee’s photographic work, personal writings and possessions. Lee had been traumatised by her wartime experiences and had hidden all her work away for more than 20 years. Antony has rescued and catalogued almost of all of the 60,000 images she took, has authored books and curated exhibitions of her work. As a result, Lee is now considered one of the great women photographers of the 20th century and the quality and vision of her photos matches the work of many of her more famous male counterparts.

The book ‘The Lives of Lee Miller’ by Antony Penrose is published by Thames & Hudson.

See also: Lee Miller Archive

Lee was the one-time lover and muse of Man Ray who took some of the most beautiful pictures of her.  She was originally  his photographic assistant but went on to establish her own photographic studio. She and Man Ray rediscovered the technique of solarisation as a result of a happy accident. This famous Man Ray painting  - ‘A L’Heure de l’observatoire, les amoureaux’ (c. 1934) - features Lee’s lips.

Other Links:

Lee Miller and Man Ray: crazy in love

The Roland Penrose website

The Art of Lee Miller

Lee Miller by Ursula Butler

CULT BOOKS: ROBERT IRWIN

 

‘It was in my first year at Oxford that I decided that I wanted to become a Muslim saint.’

This the first line of Robert Irwin’s remarkable memoir of the 1960s. He wrote it, he says, ‘to give my youth a retrospective artistic shape… But I also wanted to give an account of Sufism from the inside, as well as instructing readers of the basic elements of Islam and the difficulties a Western convert is likely to face…I also wanted to shed some light of on the occult and mystical aspects of the counterculture, as well as some of the ludicrous aspects of the hippy sixties.’

In an article for The Guardian  on his Top 10 quest narratives, he wrote:

"My own quest began in the 1960s when I travelled out from the home counties in search of the meaning of life and self-knowledge. I hitchhiked across North Africa and in a zawiya (a kind of Sufi monastery) in Algeria I saw miraculous things and experienced ecstasy, but, though the books listed below are narratives of successful quests, my own Memoirs of a Dervish is uniquely an account of ultimate spiritual failure."

Irwin’s picture of his younger self is less than flattering. For much of the narrative he appears out of his mind. An outsider, obviously fiercely intelligent but disturbed, he explores a myriad of mystical beliefs, samples a variety of drugs, has love affairs and pursues his spiritual quest. Hs experiences in Algeria are intense and his account of those days is very valuable.

Algeria at that time was still experiencing turmoil after the  "Algerian Revolution" which, according to Wikipedia, was ‘a conflict between France and Algerian independence movements from 1954 to 1962, which led to Algeria's gaining its independence from France. An important decolonization war, it was a complex conflict characterized by guerrilla warfare, maquis fighting, terrorism against civilians, the use of torture on both sides, and counter-terrorism operations by the French Army. The conflict was also a civil war between loyalist Algerian Muslims who believed in a French Algeria and their insurrectionist Algerian counterparts.’

Irwin refers to the truly amazing  and prescient film ‘The Battle of Algiers’ by Gillo Pontecorvo, one of the greatest drama documentaries ever made, which captures this bitter and bloody struggle in all its terrifying reality. Read Ian Jack’s piece ‘Back to The Future’

In retrospect, the Algerian war was the first conflict of modern times between Islam and the West. Algeria remains one of the few Arab countries that has not become part of the Arab Spring.

‘Memoirs of A Dervish is a must read. I followed this immediately with one of Irwin’s six novels ‘ The Arabian Nightmare’ which is a wonderfully evoked complex orientalist tale-within-a-tale about Balian of Norwich, trapped in the labyrinth of Cairo and in his own dark nightmares. Here we meet Fatima the Deadly, the Father of Cats, the Laughing Dervishes and the leper knights to name just a few of the strange and exotic characters. Its wonderful and haunting story which bears comparison to ‘Samarkand’ See Previous Post: Cult Books: Amin Maalouf]

Looking forward to tackling more of Irwin’s other fiction works as well as well as his non-fiction, which include ‘Night and Horses and the Desert: The Penguin Anthology of Classical Arabic Literature ‘

Irwin lectures on Arabic and Middle Eastern history at the Universities of London, Cambridge and Oxford, and is the Middle East editor for the Times Literary Supplement.

Footnote: Interested to discover Malise Ruthven’s review of a new book ‘Reading the Qur’an’ by Ziaddin Sardar – a progressive reading of Islam’s sacred text.