For much of her career, Elfriede Jelinek has been maligned in the press for both her unrelenting critique of Austrian complicity in the Holocaust and her provocative deconstructions of pornography. Despite this, her central role in shaping contempora...

Over the last twenty years, William Kentridge has built a worldwide reputation as a contemporary artist, best known for his series of ten animated films created from charcoal drawings. The films introduced a significant character in contemporary fict...

Famous for their Darjeeling tea, the tea gardens of Bengal were the birthplace of a worker's union movement in the 1930s, while India was under British colonial rule. Protesting oppression by owners and managers, the workers formed unions, organized...

Tariq Ali's latest play, "The New Adventures of Don Quixote", can be read as an homage to German poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht as much as a playful tribute to Cervantes's masterwork. The central characters from the original novel, Don Quixote an...

Dramatist, poet, novelist, and journalist Matei Visniec, born in Romania and living in France since seeking political asylum in 1987, has been one of the most trenchant voices of Europe, condemning the atrocities of totalitarianism as well as excesse...

An unprecedented anthology of contemporary Polish drama, "Loose Screws" brings together nine previously un-translated plays by prominent playwrights who have emerged in rapidly changing postcommunist landscapes. The plays expose ways in which individ...

A benign old monk listens to a prospective novice's tale of depravity, violence, and carnivorous excess while a nice little family drama – in which nearly everyone dies – unfurls. But in this tale of sharp hatchets, bad water, and a rusty WWII mortar...

"Asylum and Exile" is the result of several months of personal outreach to refugees and asylum seekers that goes behind the headlines to reveal the humanity, tragedy, and bravery of the individuals who have left everything behind to seek sanctuary fr...

Molissa Fenley, one of the most influential artists of postmodern dance, has had a lasting impact on performance. In dance, she has explored extreme effort and duration in highly crafted patterns and performed with an explosive, joyous energy that in...

In this novel by celebrated South African writer Zakes Mda, Kristin Uys, a tough magistrate who lives alone with her cat in the Roodepoort district of Johannesburg, goes on a one-woman crusade to wipe out prostitution in her town. Her reasons are per...