NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW ON-LINE

Why bother with literature at a time like this?

Hemon and Cowie go further. They want to believe that literature makes a difference. Maybe it does, and even if it doesn't I applaud the way this issue of PRETEXT attempts to make the case. There's a long conversation between Hemon and Colum McCann on WRITERS AND HISTORY — which develops a distinction (which remains unclear to me) between mere writing (bad — or at least insignificant) and literature (good). As for the stories and poems, there's been a conscious effort to chose ones that deal with big issues (Michelle Roberts on sexual liberation) or shine a light into obscure corners of the global economy (Rachel Seiffert on the values of the old East Germany and Ben Faccini on the garbage collecting clans of Cairo.) Irrespective of whether the writing (sorry — literature) is any good, you can be certain that the subject matter is important.

The fence that is being cut is the one that keeps the Mexican migrants off George Bush's Texas ranch (the image is McCann's) and the idea is that the magazine should channel foreign ideas into our parochial anglophone culture. Naive? Of course. Worth doing? Yes — a thousand times, yes!

PRETEXT is based on themed issues, each guest edited. This issue's theme is ONCE UPON A TIME. Tiffany Murray explains in the introduction,

In FROM A DIARY AT THE ROPE MAKER'S ARMS Jean Rhys tells us she is compelled to write otherwise her life 'will have been an abject failure... I will not have earned death'... This 'earning death' is still a little grand for me, but gathering this collection together has made me think, even more, of why we write. Exercising freedom of expression in some cases; exorcising ghosts, in others. Though essentially I think Helon has it right in his Afterword for WAITING FOR AN ANGEL: 'My concern was for the story, that above everything else.'.

But do you think literature matters in terms of shaping political policies?

Not as an immediate fixer. Not as an instant fructifier of our aspirations. It does matter, but let us not get too romantic about literature being mightier than the sword, or expect immediate changes; but in terms of shaping ways of thinking, and ultimately shaping the collective consciously, it does matter.

	...Lost, lovely Antionette
	How can I forget you
	When the spring comes?
	(Spring is cold and furtive here
	There's a different rain)
	Where did you hide yourself
	After the obeah nights...

	...Alice, Alice, you didn't tell me that heroes
	Also need caution, moderation.
 
	Alice, where are you now?
	You have launched me and left me in mid-air
 
	Sometimes I wish we could start over again
	Then I'd tell you:
 
	Keep you hero launcher, your wings, your fire
	I really don't want to be Superman.

This is a biannual journal, perfect bound and well produced. There is a mixture of fiction, criticism, and poetry. It is a substantial journal so you should find something of interest here. This particular issue contains interviews with Maureen Duffy and J G Ballard, and images by Ivan Coleman. Each image by Ivan Coleman illustrates a month of the year, and each image is accompanied by a poem by Alison Fell. The poem for July takes, as its subject, mountaineering:

	Then sometimes the stillness
	is so sheer, tall blue bales of it
	stacked up by the morning,

	that the mountain makes no sense
	but some symmetry we know
	we lack

	and the climbers come down
	quietly through the cairn-fields,
	full of fear and beauty

Paul Bailey gives THREE LIFE STORIES. The first is called VIGIL:

After his death, I prospered at school. Within a year I had begun to learn poems by heart. A Jewish boy in my class introduced me to Mendelssohn and Beethoven and the cultural gap between me and my relatives began to widen.

This is an interesting journal. The standard is high and it is very worthy of the reader's time. One to try if you don't already read it.