British Essayists: George Orwell – Notes on Nationalism

Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by the pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist. Noted as a novelist, as a critic and as a political and cultural commentator, Orwell is among the most widely admired English-language essayists of the 20th century. He is best known [...]

A major minor: Ezra Pound’s poetry

by Donald Lyons
The Pound that matters is early Pound, essentially the Pound of the London years. He arrived in London to stay (he had visited earlier) on August 14, 1908 and within a decade or so of that date had composed most of what is permanently valuable in his enormous oeuvre.
Pound had been [...]

Of war, loss and the politics of poetry

Farideh Hassanzadeh
Farideh Hassanzadeh (Mostafavi) is an Iranian poet, translator and freelance journalist. Her first book of poetry was published when she was 22. Her poems appear in the anthologies Contemporary Women Poets of Iran and Anthology of Best Women Poets. She writes regularly for Golestaneh, Iran News and many other literary magazines and newspapers. [...]

Baudelaire’s Fleurs du Mal

On this day in 1857, Charles Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal was published. Critics now regard it as one of the most important and influential collection of poetry to come out of the 19th century, and an essential bridge between Romanticism and Modernism, but contemporary newspapers like Figaro would have no part of it:
Never in [...]

Russian Ark – Interview with Alexander Sokurov

When did you get the idea of making a one-shot film?Cinema art has developed as the art of montage – which is, actually, the art of cutting, the art of a knife. However, many filmmakers were seeking the continuity of image, for instance, Alexander Dovzhenko. In my opinion, his experience had an influence on Andrey [...]

The State of Contemporary Russian Cinema

By David Gurevich
No one can say television has been skimping on images of Russia lately. Statues of Communists being toppled from pedestals. Yeltsin atop a tank addressing enthusiastic crowds. Yeltsin recovering from surgery. But, unlike in America, East European art, with its tradition of engagément, has traditionally been a better barometer of what is going [...]