In these three plays, García Lorca's acknowledged masterpieces, he searched for a contemporary mode of tragedy and reminded his audience that dramatic poetry-or poetic drama-depends less on formal convention that on an elemental, radical outlook on human life. His images are beautiful and exact, but until now no translator had ever been able to make his characters speak unaffectedly on the Ame…
The third volume of Somerset Maugham's Collected Short Stories, introduced by the author, contains the celebrated series about Ashenden, a secret service agent in World War I. Based on Maugham's own experiences with the British Intelligence service in Switzerland, the stories are vignettes in which he dramatises both the romance and absurdity of espionage as well as its ruthlessness and brutali…
When Nelson Mandela stepped out of prison to freedom in 1990, the elation in South Africa and around the world was palpable. But true freedom for his people remains a distant dream. Why? From South Africa to India and beyond, a rapacious economic system condemns millions to poverty while men in faraway decorous offices impose a ruthless political order with tariffs and embargoes, bombs and bull…