Welcome to the lair of Ana the Imp!

In Nazi Literature in the Americas Roberto Bolaño - an Argentinean writer who sadly died aged fifty in 2003 - has provided the perfect literary companion. It’s an exhaustive collection of pocket obituaries of all the major and many of the minor poets, writers and novelists whose political conservatism took them to the extreme right, who became Nazis or fellow travellers, all of whom were born in the Americas. It’s such a pity we do…

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I've not long finished Molotov’s Magic Lantern – a Journey in Russian History by Rachel Polonsky. This is one of the books that Orlando Figes, another specialist in Russian history, tried to cheapen by an Amazon review, written supposedly by his wife, while talking up his own work. The whole affair was really quite sad because he is a decent historian, one whose work stands on its own merits, one who did not need to attempt assassination by…

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I’m reading Life and Fate at present, a remarkable book by a remarkable man, Vasily Grossman, best know as a journalist of genius, who reported from the Russian side during the Second World War. I’m only half way through the novel, his magnum opus, so I’m not offering this as a review. Rather I want to draw attention to one particular chapter, half way through the book, a chapter that I have not long just finished reading. I’m just so full…

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I confess I had never heard of Jorge Semprun, a prominent Spanish writer, politician and former government minister, until I picked up The Long Voyage, an autobiographical novel based upon his experiences in the Second World War. The voyage itself, a train journey, is the framework around which this astonishing narrative is constructed, as the author moves back through memory to times past and times future, always returning to a times present,… Continue

I long to believe in immortality…If I am destined to be happy with you here-how short is the longest life. I wish to believe in immortality-I wish to live with you forever. John Keats to Fanny Brawne, July 1820





A thing of beauty is a joy forever. It is indeed, and Jane Campion’s new movie Bright Star, about the tragic and moving love affair between John Keats and Fanny Brawne, is a thing of beauty. I liked The… Continue