INTERVIEW / Jonah Raskin : Translator and Mystic Willis Barnstone on Babe...
Willis Barnstone, right, with Jorge Luis Borges, Buenos Aires, 1975. Interview with Willis Barnstone:Hermit, translator, ardent baseball fan “People called Babe Ruth a womanizer and a drunk....
View ArticleBOOKS / Ron Jacobs : Albert Camus and the Liberal Dilemma
Algerian Chronicles: Albert Camus and the liberal dilemma These writings do much toward describing the plight of the Algerian people, but suffer from an inability to acknowledge, much less examine, the...
View ArticleLITERATURE / Ron Jacobs : Crime Fiction and Capitalist Reality
Image from ForumFree. Crime fiction and capitalist reality Noir does not pretend that the society its protagonists operate in is worth saving. It’s just the only one we have. By Ron Jacobs | The Rag...
View ArticleJean Trounstine : Censoring What Prisoners Read
Werewolf erotica: Too sexy for prisoners? Image from The Atlantic Wire. ‘Werewolf erotica’ too ‘sexy’?Censoring what prisoners read The truth is that prisons want to control behavior. They want to...
View ArticleThorne Dreyer : December guests on Rag Radio include ‘Radical Jesus’ editor,...
Our Rag Radio podcasts feature interviews with historian and graphic nonfiction publisher Paul Buhle, Texas blogger and prison reform advocate Scott Henson, and fiction writer Daniel Chacón, author of...
View ArticleRon Jacobs : Moorcock’s ‘Pyat Quartet’ is story of a twentieth century knave
This epic work unfolds in a litany of prejudice, arrogance, and wrongheadedness, all told in a manner that is delightful to read. By Ron Jacobs | The Rag Blog | March 1, 2014 [Pyat Quartet by Michael...
View ArticleMETRO | Tom Zigal’s gripping post-Katrina novel wins state’s top literary award
By Thorne Dreyer | The Rag Blog | April 9, 2014 AUSTIN — Austin novelist Thomas Zigal has won the prestigious Jesse Jones award for fiction from the Texas Institute of Letters for his highly-acclaimed...
View ArticleThe Rag Blog : METRO EVENT | It’s a Rag Blog Happy Hour! With special guest,...
Rock out with us at Maria’s, Friday, Feb. 6 — and also catch Jonah earlier that day when he joins host Thorne Dreyer on Rag Radio. AUSTIN — Please join the Rag Blog/Rag Radio community at an informal...
View ArticleJames Retherford : LITERATURE | Wild things
Jonah Raskin’s ‘A Terrible Beauty: The Wilderness of American Literature’ is a fresh look at American letters from the bottom up. By James Retherford | The Rag Blog | February 4, 2015 Like a true...
View ArticleJonah Raskin : LITERATURE | Obit for the American Shelley: Michael McClure...
Beat poet, author of ‘The Beard,’ died in Oakland on May 4. By Jonah Raskin | The Rag Blog | May 14, 2020 SONOMA COUNTY, Calif. — Along with a star-studded cast of Sixties personalities, among them...
View ArticleJONAH RASKIN : LITERATURE | To cancel or not to cancel Jack London
Reflections on an American writer and a controversial movement. By Jonah Raskin | The Rag Blog | April 22, 2021 Jack London’s ashes, which are buried under a rock on Sonoma Mountain in Northern...
View ArticleJONAH RASKIN : BOOKS | Rails and roads
Novelist Colson Whitehead’s ‘The Underground Railroad,’ is an epic novel of bondage and liberation. By Jonah Raskin | The Rag Blog | July 29, 2021 Near the end of The Underground Railroad, his epic...
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