11 SEPTEMBER 1993, page 34

Old Novels In Modern Rome

Roger Gard A cademic 'theorists' — but also gen- uine literary critics — are chronically unde- cided about the importance of real things to imaginative literature. Histories?......

Black Earth

after Mandelstam Manured and trodden, worked to a fine tilth, combed and quickened as a stallion's mane the earth casts up its spume of solid wealth, the stuff of freedom, my......