An Italian journalist was in Belfast this week to launch her translation of a book on Bobby Sands.

Twinbrook man Sands died 29 years ago this week on hunger strike in Long Kesh. The previous month he had been elected MP for Fermanagh/South Tyrone and was the first of ten republicans to die on hunger strike during spring and summer 1981.

Italian journalist and writer Silvia Calamati spoke to the Andersonstown News about her translation of ‘I Arose This Morning a Biography of Bobby Sands for Younger Readers’ by Denis O’ Hearn and Laurence McKeown. ‘II Diario di Bobby Sands: Storia di un Ragazzo Irlandese’ will be launched in Italy this week to coincide with the anniversary of the hunger strikers death.

The closing lines of this book are arguably the most contentious: ‘the roots of the Provisional movement are to be found primarily in the abject failure of the 1956-1962 border campaign.’ It is an interesting thesis because there is nothing in the preceding two hundred pages that would lend itself to such a conclusion. What emerges from Barry Flynn’s readable study of Operation Harvest is the deep rooted and almost instinctual ideological opposition of republicans to the British presence in Ireland. In terms of removing that presence the IRA’s border campaign was as great a failure as that of the Provisional IRA. But the terms on which the republicans of half a century ago ended their six year armed struggle were vastly different from the manner in which the Provisionals settled up.

Prisoner 1082 - Escape From Crumlin Road, Europe’s Alcatraz

Dónal Donnelly

… An impenetrable prison …
… A desperate man …
… A daring escape …

The Real Prison Break

It sounds like the plot for a Hollywood movie or TV show. But this is a true story. With the 50th anniversary of his escape from the prison known as ‘Europe’s Alcatraz’ fast approaching, Dónal Donnelly – Prisoner 1082 – tells his story.

Biografien können dazu angetan sein, einen Punkt zu setzen; hinter ein Leben, ein Werk. Was davon gesichtet, gesichert werden konnte, wird ins papierne Museum getragen. Seht her: So ist es gewesen. Und: Bitte nicht berühren. Die Suhrkamp-Reihe »BasisBiographien« besticht dabei durch besonders kleine, übersichtliche Vitrinen. Gegliedert in Leben, Werk, Wirkung, versehen mit Randstichworten, Zitatkästen, Zeittafel und Registern, streng beschränkt auf 160 Seiten, ähneln die in dieser Reihe erschienenen Bände längeren Lexikoneinträgen. Wer so ein Buch zu Rate zieht, erwartet kompetent verdichtete Fakten, nicht Polemik, nicht Empathie, schon gar nicht Prognostik.

Dietmar Dath schert sich um solche Erwartungen wenig. Seine »BasisBiographie« zu Rosa Luxemburg ist – obgleich kompetent, verdichtend, informativ – nichts weniger als eine Einführung in ein abgeschlossenes Forschungsgebiet. Dieses Buch will vor allem als Gebrauchsanweisung gelesen werden. Nichts liegt dem Autor ferner, als Luxemburgs Ideen in heutiger Zeit zu den Akten zu legen. Gleichzeitig befremdet ihn kaum etwas mehr als die Reliquien-Verehrung »einer bestimmten Sorte denkfauler linker Kitschgesinnung«. Der »penetranten Märtyrerinnenduzerei, die ihre liebe Rosa so gern hat wie tote Linke ganz allgemein«, setzt Dath die Empfehlung entgegen, Luxemburgs Denken zu studieren und auf seine Gegenwartsbezogenheit zu prüfen. »Die Theoretikerin sorgt, wo sie fortwirkt, für das, was ihr am Liebsten war – Bewegung.«

Irish republican James Connolly was not just one of the leaders of the 1916 rising. He was also the most important Irish trade union leader in his time, founder of the Irish Citizens Army, a stirring speaker, socialist as well as an often underestimated theoretician of the relationship between national and social liberation.

For the first time two of James Connolly’s writings have been made available in German by the Austrian publisher Promedia. The writings appear in a selection titled ‘Nationalism and Socialism’ edited and introduced by the German historian Stefan Bollinger. The book also includes writings of political activists and thinkers like Karl Marx, Ho Chi Minh, Mao Zedong or Harry Haywood.