Latest news with #HutchinsonHeinemann
Irish Times
4 days ago
- Politics
- Irish Times
A thoroughly engrossing account of the Iranian revolution and an essential read on post-Assad Syria
King of Kings: The Fall of the Shah, the Iranian Revolution and the Unmaking of the Modern Middle East Author : Scott Anderson ISBN-13 : 978-1529155266 Publisher : Hutchinson Heinemann Guideline Price : €25 Transformed by the People: Hayat Tahrir al-Sham's Road to Power in Syria Author : Patrick Haenni and Jerome Drevon ISBN-13 : 978-1805264101 Publisher : Hurst Guideline Price : £19.95 Scott Anderson's thoroughly engrossing account of the Iranian revolution, King of Kings, is a welcome refresher for many in the West, whose perception of US-Iranian relations is no doubt coloured by the hostage crisis and the subsequent mutual vilification by the two countries. Anderson provides ample nuance in his account of the prior relationship between Washington and Tehran, one that the Americans were not automatically giving up on after the advent of the mullahs. Popular resentment in Iran against the US for its role in the 1953 coup that overthrew Mohammad Mosaddegh and for its steadfast support for the Shah fuelled the revolution from both the secular left and religious right. In reality, however, as Anderson points out, Washington was fairly hands-off after 1953, probably a bit too much for its, and Iran's, good. The most striking thing we learn from King of Kings was how negligent Washington was of Iran. The country was America's most important ally in the region, according to Anderson (I am presuming he is not counting Israel), and yet, right until the fall of the Shah, employed barely any Farsi-speakers at its Tehran embassy and was far too content to listen to, and relay, the good news it wanted to hear from Iran. READ MORE [ Two tribes: How Israel and Iran became enemies Opens in new window ] This was true of successive administrations but it became particularly acute under Jimmy Carter , when competing egos in his cabinet, the worst offender being Zbigniew Brzezinski, engendered an institutional sclerosis that resulted in the rare warnings from seasoned Iran hands, such as Farsi-speaking consular official Mike Metrinko, and head of the State Department's Iran desk Henry Precht, going unheard. [ Iran-US relations: What is behind the hostility between the two countries? Opens in new window ] When the revolution did come, being almost instantly usurped by the supremely vicious and obscure Ruhollah Khomeini, the White House was as taken aback as were American expatriates in Tehran, blissfully ignorant in their sociolinguistic bubbles and suburban homes. Admittedly, many Iranians, even Khomeini's more moderate revolutionary allies, were caught equally unawares by the grim ayatollah, whom few had heard of until a few months before the Shah's fall, forgotten as he was in his Iraqi exile since being expelled by the regime in 1964. But they didn't have the resources Washington had, and the US assumed that the Shah, as the successor of a monarchy that had survived 2,500 years, was eternal and unassailable. Washington also made the mistake of giving far too much credence to the Shah's own conviction that communism, and not Islamism, was the greatest threat to his rule. Anderson wryly notes that a 'red' Iran, unlikely as it was, would have in the long run been far less of a headache for the US. One of the great pleasures of King of Kings is the portrayal of the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, a man as fascinating as he was fatuous. He resembles stars of 1960s TV in being one of the world's most famous men in his day while now being largely forgotten. Praised by foreign nationals for his sharp intelligence (at least by royal standards), he was also a workaholic with a risible tendency for self-regard and an adamantine obliviousness to how Iranians regarded him (his younger wife Farah was a lot more sensitive to this). Pahlavi's eldest son and heir Reza has been touting himself in recent weeks as a potential transitional leader in the event of the US once again effecting regime change, no doubt reasoning that four decades spent in Paris and suburban Washington can't make him any more out of touch with Iranians than his father was in the Niavaran Palace. Which brings me to a major flaw in Anderson's book: his overly Washington-centric outlook. While fair in his assessment of the Shah and his regime, Anderson is rather too wistful about its passing. There is no doubt that the Islamic Republic is an infinitely worse entity than its imperial predecessor, but that was not a historical inevitability. And while Anderson is correct to say that the Shah's regime was considerably less bloody than that of Arab dictators in the region, why should that be a concern of the Iranian people, any more than citizens of liberal democracies should be content with their rights being rolled back simply because other countries have it far worse? The source of Iranian anger at the Shah, be it from the educated middle classes or the more religiously devout poor, was far from illusory. If the United States lost a good ally in the region, maybe it should have been a bit more attentive. That said, King of Kings is well worth a read. If the fall of the Shah in 1979 was unexpectedly rapid, the toppling of Bashar al-Assad in December last year by comparison took place in the blink of an eye, albeit after a protracted conflict that had stagnated for about six years. With Assad's Iranian, Russian or Lebanese allies either in disarray or occupied elsewhere, the Syrian army was overrun in the space of a week and the president fled to Moscow hours before Damascus fell to insurgents led by former al-Qaeda member Ahmad al-Shaara. Western governments, which had long since reconciled themselves to Assad as better the devil they know, moved quickly to meet the new Damascus government, even as Shaara and his group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, were still designated terrorists. [ US revokes foreign terrorist designation for Syria's Hayat Tahrir al-Sham Opens in new window ] Not since the days of the Mujahideen fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan have jihadis (or in HTS's case, former jihadis) been so readily courted by western countries. Of course, foreign governments probably felt there was little else to work with if Syria were to remain stable after Assad's departure. There were also some among them, Germany and Austria in particular, who cynically saw the moment as an opportunity to finally send home the Syrians they had taken in as refugees. Even so, it is a fact that Shaara and HTS were a much less radical force than they once were, even a relatively respectable one, given the group had its origins in al-Qaeda in Iraq (Shaara spent most of the war there in Abu Ghraib and other prisons before returning to Syria to wage jihad against the Assad regime in 2011). Shaara's Al-Nusra Front split with al-Qaeda in 2016, and then in turn splintered to form HTS a year later. Since then, HTS has moved inexorably towards the centre of the Islamist spectrum. Patrick Haenni and Jerome Drevon's impressive study of the group, based on a wide range of detailed interviews, including with Shaara and other figures in HTS, charts this deradicalisation, which the authors contend was born of pragmatism to survive in the ever-fragmented insurgent landscape of mid-2010s Syria. No doubt cognisant of the popular revulsion in Syria at the excesses of the largely foreign Islamic State, HTS focused instead on coalition-building with more moderate groups and battles for hegemony against more radical ones. Overseeing the Salvation Government in Idlib from 2018 gave it experience of ruling, and conferred popular legitimacy on it. [ Children play among bones as Syria faces 'enormous challenge' of what to do about mass graves Opens in new window ] Though HTS has remained authoritarian, it is far more tolerant of dissent and criticism than its antecedents. It also eased sectarian tensions in Idlib, reaching out firstly to mainstream Muslims, particularly Sufis, whom Salafis generally view as suspiciously similar to Shiites, with further tentative openings-up to Christians and Druze. For this reason, Syrian commentators, secular ones included, were less panicky than foreign observers, although still cautious, about the rise to power of HTS and Shaara last December. Nonetheless, HTS, however mellowed and more tolerant they might be, are still an Islamist group and intend to implement sharia law in Syria. Haeeni and Drevon also doubt it will undergo any further liberalisation. But, given the collapse of civil society and the Balkanisation that Syria has undergone over the past decade, an illiberal if non-capricious government is probably the best anyone can expect for now. Haenni and Drevon are also no less circumspect than many other observers about how long this more moderate stance of HTS's will last. They acknowledge that detractors of the group view this moderation as a strategic deception, but they themselves feel that HTS being overtaken by radical popular sentiment is a more likely outcome. With Syria now awash with weapons and battle-hardened soldiers, there have already been questions over the interim government's ability to rein in sectarian violence by Sunni militias, such as massacres of Alawites in April and deadly attacks on the Druze, also in April and in July. The authors see HTS as now potentially swimming against the tide of popular opinion; where there was previously 'deradicalisation from the top', Syria's new rulers must grapple with 'reradicalisation from below'. This could entail another 'transformation by the people', in a far less benign direction than the one that prompted them to pitch towards the centre. Transformed by the People is by its nature a book that will have a particularly select readership but it is probably the best of its kind in English to date on the subject and is essential reading for anyone with an interest in Syria in the post-Assad era. Further reading Shah of Shahs by Ryszard Kapuściński (Penguin, 1982) The great Polish foreign correspondent published this account of the Shah's Iran three years after the revolution, but it is remarkably seminal in the way it has preserved the anachronistic absurdity of Pahlavi rule and the pervading atmosphere of dread in the imagination of readers. Islam in the World by Malise Ruthven (OUP, 2006) Updated in its third edition to take in 9/11 and the various tumults that have cascaded from it, Ruthven's study of the intersection of Islam and politics remains an essential read. The Age of Jihad: Islamic State and the Great War for the Middle East by Patrick Cockburn (Verso, 2017) Veteran Middle Eastern correspondent Cockburn's account of the 21st-century wars between the West and the Arab world, which culminated in the rise of the Islamic State, is a superb synthesis of reportage and analysis and reads like a cautionary tale that will no doubt be disregarded time and time again by western leaders.
Straits Times
19-07-2025
- Lifestyle
- Straits Times
Book review: Adam Roberts' Food Person is a lip-smacking good time
By Adam Roberts Fiction/Hutchinson Heinemann/Hardcover/320 pages/$34.95 Midway through the novel Food Person, protagonist Isabella Pasternack goes shopping. Her jaunt through this garden of earthly delights begins with a stop at a voguish fashion boutique, where she trades 10-year-old ratty jeans, a moth-bitten sweater and holey sneakers for a 'positively diaphanous' silk maxi dress.
Irish Times
12-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Idle Grounds by Krystelle Bamford: Riotous, dark debut marks the arrival of a singular new talent
Idle Grounds Author : Krystelle Bamford ISBN-13 : 978-1529154580 Publisher : Hutchinson Heinemann Guideline Price : £16.99 'Maybe humour is braided with misfortune,' wonders the first-person plural narrator of Krystelle Bamford's riotous, dark debut Idle Grounds. A dynamic novel with a morbid undercurrent, its Scotland -based writer takes on the collective voice of a troop of cousins, on an expedition through their aunt's grand estate in Massachusetts (the state where Bamford was raised). Along the way, the children uncover supernatural goings-on, macabre family secrets and some of adulthood's sombre truths. In a foreword, the narrator offers a disclaimer about their plucky, 'varied crew' with a 'median' age of seven: they are like the Romanovs, to whom 'bad things started to happen, including lots of chores done at gunpoint in the snow'. They are, they assert, privileged and ill-fated to a similar degree. At a birthday gathering at their aunt Frankie's home (the only Republican family member), trouble begins when the kids spy an unidentifiable, menacing entity outside. Abi scarpers and her brother, the accomplished, privately-educated Travis (the oldest of the bunch), assumes the role of group leader in their mission to retrieve her. READ MORE Yet Abi has departed into a parallel universe of sorts, concealed beyond 'a layer of translucent fat'. Behind this is their parents' childhood home and, in turn, the burned-down abode of the deceased family matriarch, Beezy, whose spectral presence looms over the day's proceedings. Caught up in their grief, the parents remain forebodingly oblivious to their children's whereabouts. Deftly weighing up these intriguing paranormal elements with absurd family lore, Idle Grounds ushers the reader through the young clan's quest with an unrelenting, formidable energy. Bamford – also a poet – has a style characterised by a startling vividness and valiant humour, every page well-stocked with smart descriptions: 'an almighty goulash of legs'; one aunt 'a vast tundra punctured by the occasional shrub of her barking laugh'; 'a scribble of a girl'. From the vantage point of childhood, Bamford offers a shrewd, caustic perspective on how those with the most resources 'scupper their own chances in life in utterly idiosyncratic ways, which is the usual province of the middle-to-upper-middle-class' – and yet we still pity them. One part child adventure novel, one part wry family history and another part social commentary, this is a debut which marks the arrival of a singular new talent.
Irish Times
07-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid: An imperfect addition to the lesbians-in-space genre
Atmosphere Author : Taylor Jenkins Reid ISBN-13 : 978-1529152975 Publisher : Hutchinson Heinemann Guideline Price : £20 It's been a good year for lesbians in space. First, the Australian animated film Lesbian Space Princess made its world premiere at the 2025 Berlinale. Now, Taylor Jenkins Reid's ninth novel depicts a – literally – cosmic disaster steered by lesbian astronauts. Set in the early 1980s, Atmosphere follows Joan Goodwin and Vanessa Ford, two fictional women joining Nasa not long after the first American woman on the moon, Sally Ride. As Joan fulfils her dream of training at Houston's Johnson Space Centre, a wave of gay realisation hits her hard and fast. Just as her early infatuation begins to raise questions about how to live with a same-sex partner in a viciously homophobic world – 'You do realise bringing a woman as your date will make you look like a … you know …" – a 1984 mission threatens to take an apocalyptic turn. There's much talk these days about the screenplayification of novels, the claim that writers are replacing interiority with action and dialogue in a bid to get lucratively optioned. Less discussed is the increasingly default presence of cinematically non-linear narratives. What was once an experiment has become the done thing: 1. opening teaser as close to the end as possible, 2. cut to much earlier in the story, 3. interweave the pursuit of both threads until they join definitively at the end. Atmosphere follows this formula. READ MORE I doubt it would bother the author to have this pointed out. In her recent cover interview with Time, Jenkins Reid shot back at critics who assumed she'd ever been trying to write literary fiction: '[M]aybe I love being Candy Land [Jonathan] Franzen.' The novel's feminism operates at a similar emotional temperature: friendly, with a tendency to flatter the 21st-century reader's existing sensibilities She's not a stylist, and that's fine. Franzen can write Franzen's books. Jenkins Reid's job is to write her own. Her sentences convey character, setting and plot without drawing attention to themselves. Unhindered by the road bump of experimental prose, a casual reader might breeze past the insight often packed into short strings of words. But dialogue like this will seep into you if you let it: 'Have you ever been in love?' 'No, I don't think so.' 'Well, it's like a bad cold: it's miserable and then, one day, it's gone.' The humour is gentle rather than uproarious. Only once did I laugh aloud: '… Hank was the recipient of a very large trust fund. It was a fact that Hank wore with complexity." But there are moments that will elicit a soft smile, as when none of Joan's male colleagues make Nasa's final selection: 'No men from our group, huh?' 'No […] I am afraid they were not up to snuff." [ Taylor Jenkins Reid: 'Marriages are messy. Our lives are messy. Convenient truths don't exist' Opens in new window ] The novel's feminism operates at a similar emotional temperature: friendly, with a tendency to flatter the 21st-century reader's existing sensibilities, rather than to prompt any startling self-interrogation. 'Don't thank me for doing the bare minimum,' a male astronaut tells Joan. 'It does a disservice to us both.' I don't disagree. Does anyone reading this? One could reasonably rejoin that Jenkins Reid had never been trying to prompt any ideological awakening. The greater issue is how present-day online the phrase is. 'The bare minimum' has been kicking around the English language for ages, of course, but its application to men being called feminist pioneers for acts of ordinary decency is distractingly contemporary. 'Thank you for your excellent notes on how I can be scared in a less vulnerable way,' Joan says. 'Did she fumble?' she wonders. She's several decades too early for 'vulnerable' to readily signify performatively confessional femininity, and back in the innocent 1980s the verb 'to fumble' still needed an object. The scattering of these moments is too uneven for it to read as an intentional gesture to modern readers. When the language does embody the context, it's thrilling. Here's a liaison with ground control: 'We are go.' 'Guidance?' 'Go.' 'FIDO?', and on for another 20 lines. I had only the vaguest clue what was happening and I loved it; the texture and energy mattered more than the exact meaning. [ Daisy Jones & the Six: Everyone looks perpetually glamorous, but it's a soulless jingle Opens in new window ] I imagine it will divide gay readers that the HIV epidemic is mentioned only once. 'At that very moment, people all over the country were convinced that Aids was a punishment for moral failing,' muses the narrator in autumn 1983. Two paragraphs later, Joan has returned to wishing she could get married. There is little sense of a broader queer community for the astronauts. Their romance takes place in an intergalactic vacuum – or a near-vacuum, to deploy the scientific precision that Joan would want – while gay people at home die en masse. Some will hate this. Others will respond that we already have enough books on the trauma of those years. Even readers who find the intimacy myopic will, I think, be moved by it at the same time: 'Joan had had no idea how quickly you could learn another's body. How swiftly their legs become your legs, their arms your arms.' May the lesbian space genre continue to boom. This book is an imperfect addition, but one that floats. Naoise Dolan's latest novel is The Happy Couple
The Guardian
04-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Unseen Harper Lee stories set in New York and Alabama to be published
Never-before-seen short stories by Harper Lee will be published later this year, it has been announced. Eight short stories written before the author started the novel that would become To Kill a Mockingbird were found in Lee's New York City apartment after she died in 2016. They will be published in a collection titled The Land of Sweet Forever, alongside eight previously published non-fiction pieces by Lee, and an introduction by Casey Cep, author of Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee. Dr Edwin Conner, Lee's nephew, said he and his family are 'delighted that these essays, and especially the short stories, which we knew existed but were only recently discovered, have been found and are being published. She was not just our beloved aunt, but a great American writer, and we can never know too much about how she came to that pinnacle.' The Land of Sweet Forever 'broadens our understanding of Lee's remarkable talent' and 'will prove an invaluable resource for anyone interested in Lee's development as a writer', according to the book's UK publisher Hutchinson Heinemann, an imprint of Penguin Random House. The stories contain Lee's 'signature wit, that splash of darkness and those heartwarming characters for which she is beloved,' said Ailah Ahmed, Hutchinson Heinemann publishing director. 'The pieces take us from Alabama to less familiar territory for Lee in Manhattan.' Just two books by Lee were published in her lifetime, 1961 Pulitzer prize winner To Kill a Mockingbird, and Go Set a Watchman, which began life as an earlier draft of Mockingbird. There was controversy when that was published in 2015, with some raising questions about the extent of Lee's involvement in the decision. At the time the author was 88 years old and profoundly deaf and blind. Born in 1926 in Monroeville, Alabama, Lee was 34 years old when To Kill a Mockingbird, loosely based on observations of her family and neighbours in Monroeville was published. Since then, it has been translated into more than 40 languages and more than 46m copies have been sold worldwide. Lee won numerous awards throughout her lifetime, including the Presidential medal of freedom. She died on February 19, 2016. Michael Dean, a representative of the Lee Estate, said The Land of Sweet Forever will 'bring us closer than ever before to the life and work of one of the 20th century's greatest authors.' Sign up to Bookmarks Discover new books and learn more about your favourite authors with our expert reviews, interviews and news stories. Literary delights delivered direct to you after newsletter promotion The Land of Sweet Forever by Harper Lee (Cornerstone, £22). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at Delivery charges may apply.
