arts byMark Fisher


Books Every Word Matters Ranjana Srivastava Out now, Simon and Schuster The oncologist and Guardian writer turns her attention to the craft of writing, considering how to communicate complex ideas, develop a distinctive voice and keep people reading. As a medical professional, she is on a mission to use language to ‘inform, persuade and heal’. https://tinyurl.com/24gm6sbw


Gaza: a Doctor’s Diary Salman Khalid January 20, Pluto Press


In depth Pioneers brought in from the cold


If it is true that the stories of people of colour have been neglected, it is equally true of those who have sought to tell those stories. Pioneering journalists


such as Samuel Jules Celestine Edwards, Dusé Mohamed Ali, Claude McKay, George Padmore, Una Marson, Claudia Jones and Darcus Howe made great strides in representing the voices of black and minority ethnic people in the UK but, too often, their efforts have been forgotten. That is something NUJ


member Yvonne Singh hopes to change. Her new book, Ink! The Journalists who Transformed Britain, puts those seven radical figures in the spotlight. She shows them not only


18 | theJournalist


to have made crucial, if overlooked, contributions to British journalism at key points in history, but also to have led extraordinary – and sometimes tragic – lives. “It’s really hard to piece


together this history because it wasn’t thought worthy enough to be preserved,” says Singh, a journalist, teacher and


fiction writer. “These people, like Celestine Edwards way back in 1883, were working towards promoting racial justice.” The neglect is real. She


writes with horror at the shoddy state of newspaper archives, the incomplete runs of key titles and the sometimes unreadable pages that survive. “It was like going on a


treasure hunt, trying to find these newspapers and piecing them together,” says Singh, who travelled to the University of Illinois to track down copies of Edwards’ Fraternity, a Christian monthly that once had a circulation of 7,000. “With a much more


recent publication, Claudia Jones’ West


Indian Gazette, there are only three complete runs that exist in the UK and they are all tattered and battered.” It means that despite


writing a book about writers whose first-hand accounts would normally make a historian’s task easier, she had to think creatively to fill in the gaps. “I wrote this book to


give these people back their voice,” she says. “It’s an inspiration to the next generation to say these journalists were there, they struggled, but they still made their mark.” Ink! The Journalists


who Transformed Britain, Yvonne Singh, The History Press, https://tinyurl. com/23ed9xnp


homelessness and exclusion, she calls for finding strength in each other. https://tinyurl.com/2bq3ljy6


First-hand reports from a Canadian emergency physician dealing with mass casualties at al-Aqsa hospital during a month-long volunteer residency in central Gaza in September 2024. All profits go to Humanity Auxilium, an American and Canadian NGO.


Nation of Strangers Ece Temelkuran February 12, Canongate The Turkish author and political thinker reframes the idea of exile, migration and home as a series of letters between two strangers. In an era of growing displacement,


Comedy Bridget Christie: Jacket Potato Pizza On tour January 14–April 5 The creator of Channel 4 menopause comedy The Change goes on a lengthy tour of her 14th show, a riotous combination of fun, feminism and forgetfulness. https://tinyurl.com/y5h63j57


Exhibitions


and collage have frequently been used to address political, social and cultural concerns. This display brings together everything from crocheted protest banners to a Victorian ‘scrap screen’ to look at people’s campaigns for LGBTQI+ rights, environmental justice and mental health. https://tinyurl.com/27ozfqaj


Festivals Up Helly Aa Lerwick, Shetland January 27 A day of winter activities culminating at the Hillhead for the start of a torchlight procession through the town and the ritual burning of a Viking longship. www.uphellyaa.org/up-helly-aa-2026


Making a Statement: Craft & Activism in Edinburgh Museum of Edinburgh Until January 26 Techniques such as knitting, sewing


Northern Ireland Science Festival Belfast February 11–22 Focusing on the science of you, the universe and everything in between, the biggest event of its kind on the island of Ireland features Professor Alice Roberts looking at the spread of Christianity as well as criminal psychologist Dr Julia Shaw seeking to get inside the minds of the people destroying the planet. https://nisciencefestival.com


Music Celtic Connections Glasgow January 15–February 1 The annual roots and world music showcase includes the rock/accordion hybrid of RuMac, the endangered instruments of Mali’s Afel Bocoum and the refugee stories of Mon Rovîa. https://www.celticconnections.com


Talks Matt Forde’s Political Party Duchess Theatre, London February 16


Monthly conversations are being held between the comedian and notable political figures. In February, it is the turn of David Miliband, former foreign secretary, to talk about


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