unflinching

Stormzy’s #Merky Books is to publish Olympian Caster Semenya’s memoir this year.South African athlete Semenya, whose book is titled The Race to Be Myself, was just 18 when she won the 800m at the Berlin World Championships in 2009, but her win was quickly overshadowed by questions raised about her sex.The double Olympic champion, who has also been world champion three times, has a condition known as hyperandrogenism, which means she has higher than usual levels of testosterone, increasing her muscle mass, strength and…

Ali (Adam Bessa) scrapes a living hawking gasoline from a jerry can on the side of the street in Sidi Bouzid in Tunisia. He had hoped to better himself, to find opportunities overseas. But the death of his debt-ridden father has left him with the responsibility of caring for his younger sisters. And despair clings to him along with the smell of petrol and the oil that stains his clothes and skin.Loosely inspired by the case of disfranchised Tunisian street hawker Mohamed Bouazizi, who in 2010 set himself alight as a…

Mimosa by Archie Bongiovanni is a graphic novel that follows four Minneapolis queers after they’ve made the rough transition from their halcyon twenties into their “dirty thirties.” Initially bonded a decade earlier thanks to their shared status as the only queer people working at a restaurant called Chatter Square, the quartet maintains their relationship with a regularly scheduled ongoing brunch date. However, in spite of the longevity of their friendship, the winds of change are blowing, and as must inevitably happen…

Prince Harry’s highly anticipated memoir, titled Spare, is to be published in January.The book was originally due to be released in late 2022, and when it was announced Harry promised it would be a “firsthand account of my life that’s accurate and wholly truthful”.Publisher Penguin Random House said the book takes readers “immediately back to one of the most searing images of the 20th century: two young boys, two princes, walking behind their mother’s coffin as the world watched in sorrow – and horror”The cover art for…

Loretta Lynn had a voice made for telling the truth.High and flinty, with a bone-deep coal-country drawl that refused to fade even as she ascended to a queenly position in the Nashville star system, her singing sliced through polished arrangements like a sharpened blade. It could embody both the pain of betrayal and the thirst for revenge; it carried a longing for the comforts of home at the same time that it imagined ways to improve on the old days. And though she easily navigated tricky melodies — spare a thought for…

Compared to the cosmically grand anime Children of the Sea, Ayumu Watanabe’s new film is a more intimately scaled coming-of-age story that acutely understands the embarrassment that teenagers have towards their parents once puberty hits. A rotund woman with a bubbly personality, Lady Nikuko – “the Meaty Lady” – has a weakness for food, questionable dirtbags and corny puns. Her snoring rumbles through her modest houseboat like a mini earthquake. To her shy, scrawny daughter Kikurin, she is simply too much.In fact, despite…

When Sarah Polley was four years old she entertained her Christian kindergarten class with a rendition of the Monty Python song Sit on My Face. “I love to hear you oralise / When you’re between my thighs … ” she chirruped, to the delight of her libertarian parents, who denied all responsibility when they were called to account by the school.At the age of eight, egged on by her superfan dad, she auditioned for a new fantasy adventure movie by the Pythons’ Terry Gilliam. She was already the veteran of a handful of horror…