It is Luxemburg’s ethical response to the world in which she found herself – and her commitment to (in her own words) ‘burden the conscience of the affluent with all the suffering and all the hidden bitter tears’ of the oppressed – that remains her most inspiring legacy for today’s activists, and which Evans’ book captures so vividly. Peace News
Children of Calais.
I can draw pictures. That’s something I can do. I could sort clothes in the L’Auberge du Migrants warehouse, or distribute donations in the Calais Jungle, or carry firewood and build benders in the Dunkirk refugee swamp, but I decide to draw pictures, not of people, but for people. For people who have very little; not even a country to … Read More
“Most deliciously, Evans reveals Rosa Luxemburg’s growth…”
Fanciful stylistic touches echoing Chagall’s paintings serve to narrate events too huge and complex to be drawn with journalistic realism. The 1905 Russian Revolution and WWI appear here as spirals and waves, as film footage, or in miniature as Luxemburg’s unruly hair, as seen in the cover image, literally “on her mind.” These huge events that defy realism call for … Read More
Radio Rosa
Are you sitting comfortably? Then we’ll begin. Two audio interviews about Red Rosa: Interview with Mitchel Cohen, WBIA radio New York. Francesca Rheannon: The Writer’s Voice podcast (also contains fascinating interview with Ted Rall about Edward Snowden).
“Red Rosa stands out as a way to do biography right.”
Evans deals with theory in graphic form. She doesn’t shy away from giving theory the spotlight, and she is quite adept at unfolding, panel by panel, some extremely important, sometimes dense Marxian principles… Evans’s drawings give abstractions a living quality that makes them intelligible: an unattended tea kettle represents capitalism’s tendency for booms and busts, a lit candle the dialectical opposite … Read More
Top ten political books for 2016
Kate Evans has produced a graphic biography Red Rosa to bring the life, times and ideas of Rosa Luxemburg alive in a vivid and striking manner text alone will never match for impact and engagement. Philosophy Football
“…a wonderfully composed and lively book.”
Luxemburg’s discussion of credit under monopoly capitalism is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand why the capitalist economy crashed in 2007-2008 and why it will crash again. Her unrelenting opposition to imperial war and disgust with those who call themselves socialist yet support such wars is an inspiration… Counterpunch
“How come so few socialists are aware of this woman? Eyes roll at such a question – because she’s a woman, stupid!”
Red Rosa by Kate Evans is a work of flat out brilliance; a fuller story of a great life than I’d thought to see. Rosa’s mighty spirit and towering intellect – both much in evidence as she took on Lenin, no less, over the nationalist question – shine through every page… Steel City scribblings.