Spokesman Books

Recently These Are The Times: A Life of Thomas Paine , a screenplay by Trevor Griffiths, was broadcast in two parts as Radio 4's Saturday Play. The production has stirred up some disussion on Radio 4's Message Board . In an article for New Humanist , Trevor Griffiths describes its making and what the process revealed about Paine and revolution: " I’m in the gallery of a sound studio on a West London industrial estate, watching the recording of a play I began writing 20 years back and finished, in a form I was happy enough to see published, in 2005. Watching with me are producer, director, sound engineer and production coordinator. It’s our fifth day in. Time is tight. Today we’re trying a king ..." Read the full article, Revolutionising Tom Paine .

It is 63 years since the first atomic bombs were dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; on the 6th and 9th of August respectively. Around the world this week many commemorative events are taking place. They include events in Leeds, Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Germany, Austria, the USA and Canada. For details of what is happening in your area please go to the ICAN website. Spokesman Books commemorates these events with a collection of poems by James Kirkup entitled No More Hiroshimas . In the preface the author explains the genesis of this little collection: 'These poems all have their roots in one late afternoon at the land workers’ hostel outside Ponteland, Northumberland. As we entered the hostel we got the news that the first American Atom Bomb had been dropped on Japan, on the city of Hiroshima. It was the first time we had heard of that place that was to become a universal symbol of man’s inhumanity towards his fellow men.’ No More Hiroshimas, the poem which gives the...