John Baker’s Blog

Richard Garay was born in Buenos Aires with an Argentine father and an English mother. In the third novel from Colm Tóibin we join Garay’s life during the time of the Generals, the disappeared, the Falklands war and its aftermath as the American government and oil industry infiltrates Argentina to ensure a swift and easy [...]

In this 1957 film by Ingmar Bergman, a Knight (Max von Sydow with bleached hair) returning from the crusades is shadowed by the figure of Death.
The Seventh Seal has been considered one of the masterpieces of cinema for a long time. But I wondered if I would find it a little embarrassing, its imagery comical, [...]

The Durham Literature Festival 2007 is scheduled for the 29th September to the 13th October.
Highlights include:
Sean O’Brien (2007 Northern Rock Award Winner)
Linton Kwesi Johnson (a rare visit to the North East by the reggae dub poet)
Daljit Nagra (Forward Prize Winner)
and the novelists A.S. Byatt and Pat Barker
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This is a short poem by Daljit Nagra:

Raja’s Love [...]

The Guardian’s edited version of “The Other Side of Paradise, Scott Fitzgerald, 40, Engulfed in Despair” by Michel Mok, first published in the New York Post, September 25 1936
The author’s wife, Zelda, had been ill for some years. There was talk, said his friends, of an attempt at suicide on her part one evening [...]