The Hills Were Joyful TogetherSurjue, like other characters in the Kingston tenement yard, is struggling for survival when he is persuaded to take part in a robbery by the trickster figure of Flitters. He is arrested, tried and sentenced to the appalling world of a Jamaican colonial prison, full of people like himself whose only desire has been to put bread into the mouths of their families. This is a starkly brutal novel full of Maiss prophetic rage that for the poor and black

Paul Batchelor: An essay on Barry MacSweeney’s Apollinaire

Among the mix of poets are established names such as Juan Manuel Roca

the excerpt “Earthquake Nightmare” is particularly chilling

such sweet thunder

Feri Lainscek

a tragedy and a manifesto for the utopian imagination

Rachid Boudjedra

Tony Curtis is the prize-winning author of a dozen collections of poetry

Twenty-five years after his remarkable debut

He lives in the North East

encyclopaedic knowledge of the world of jazz helps add luscious colour and exhaustive context to an already remarkable tale

a current which can run back and forth along wires