Art & Culture
Mosque, church or secular space? Hagia Sophia and the battle for modern Turkey
(6 minute read)
When is a museum not a museum? When it was once a cathedral and then a mosque and is now a mosque again as a politician’s attempted ace card to revive his flagging fortunes. Cihan Eroglu reports.
A traveller in the village called Rome
(4 minute read)
Leonardo Franchi contrasts the simple lanes of village life in rural Italy with the panting heart of the Eternal City, and finds they have much in common.
Word warping in a time of pandemic
(5 minute read)
Ronnie Convery finds himself having a grammar meltdown as he ventures out after lockdown.
The artist who caught a world in flux
(7 minute read)
L. S. Lowry’s charming matchstick men are loved and loathed in equal measure. But as Adam Brocklehurst points out, there was more to Lowry than quirky depictions of northern English grime. He has a message for a society coming to grips with a new normal …
The party’s over, and why this might be just what Nigeria needs
(7 minute read)
Joshua Nwachukwu investigates the extraordinary cult of celebration in African society, and suggests the pandemic may have forced much-needed change.
A guide for restless hearts: in conversation with a classic of world literature
(4 minute read)
It’s time to explore your own mystery, says Luca La Monica, guided by one of history’s greatest thinkers.
Telling life’s real stories
(8 minute read)
The best stories are often those not written down, believes Joseph Evans.
When the storm clouds gather inside
(11 minute read)
Zoë Dukoff-Gordon reads a book about weather where the storms are more personal than meteorological.
Flying high: what birds, artists and time have in common
(8 minute read)
Three books take Prakarsh Singh into new dimensions of being.
The Decameron and the power of stories
(5 minute read)
Though telling stories might seem an escape from our Covid confinement reality, Jaqueline Silverio believes that doing so will help us face up better to its challenges.
