“Daughters of Africa” is an anthology of writing by women of African descent that appeared in 1992, edited by Margaret Busby. This was a time when the number of black women writers known to the literati could be counted on the fingers of one hand – so the more than […]

“Live; live; live”, the latest novel from Jonathan Buckley, plays eloquent witness to a liminal space, the boundary between the limits of rational thinking and the beginnings of occult mystification.   Sean Sheehan   It’s an intriguing borderland, one which does not make complete sense, lying as it does is […]

In the movie “We need to talk about Kevin”, the motivation behind the murderous behaviour of the eponymous character remain mysterious, locked away in a private and poisonous pathology. His mother struggles to understand but does not turn her back on what took place.   Sean Sheehan   Coming to […]

Fables tend to convey a moral, often anodyne, sometimes downright objectionable. Enlightened writers have seen that children need fables with a ring of social truth, not sanctimonious ones that avoid confronting unpleasant realities. Sean Sheehan   The libertarian William Godwin (1756-1836) took to writing under an assumed name because of […]