TheatreReviewFinborough, London
A Palestinian couple return to their former home to be confronted by its new Israeli owner in this unsentimental, gently political family drama
Commissioned by New York’s Public Theater, this play never reached the stage because of pressure from the board. They missed a trick because it is a powerful and disturbing piece now receiving its belated premiere. Adapted by Ismail Khalidi and Naomi Wallace from a novella by the Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani (1936-72), it works on several levels: as a poignant family drama, as a plea for Israeli-Palestinian understanding and as a warning of what will follow without some form of reconciliation. Read More...
Children and teenagersReviewJosh Lacey on an ecologically-minded book for teenagersScat, by Carl Hiaasen (Orion, £9.99)
Like PG Wodehouse and Terry Pratchett, Carl Hiaasen always returns to the same fictional – or semi-fictionalised – world, but manages to unearth an apparently endless supply of convoluted plots and entertaining characters with improbable names. He writes densely plotted comic thrillers exposing the arrogance and greed of the politicians and businessmen who are determined to desecrate his native Florida. Read More...
Fahrenheit 9/11Lila Lipscomb believed in Bush's case for war in Iraq. But when her son died in action, her faith in the American way was shattered. Emma Brockes meets the Michigan mother at the heart of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11Two years ago, if you had asked Lila Lipscomb what she stood for, she would have referred you to the flag in her garden and her four grown-up children. Her priorities were, in descending order of importance, family, faith, country and a place where all three met, what she might have called " Read More...