Critiques en avant-premièreMichael DEAN

Set in Boston and London over sixteen years, True Freedom is a panoramic account of how America came to fight Britain for its freedom in the eighteenth century. The Boston scene is set through vignettes about the people who shaped its history. Thomas Hutchinson, sixth generation of Boston aristocracy, whose wealth is seemingly unassailable. Self-taught medical doctor Thomas Young, an idealist, meeting his hero Samuel Adams who is determined to have his revolution. Their Sons of Liberty and Mohucks play a key role in the uprising, all the time supported from London by the radical politician John Wilkes. True Freedom is full of vivid period details; you can almost smell Parliament in London or hear the clerks scribbling away in the American Department. So too, in Boston, you can picture the meeting-place Faneuil Hall, experience the might of the British navy in the harbour, and feel the determination of the Boston people to defy Parliament in London. Together they form facets of the main character: the Boston uprising. The facts are described but by focusing on personal relationships Michael Dean takes us right to the heart of identity and sovereignty.

The White Crucifixion is a fictionalised account of the rollercoaster life in terrible times of one of the most enigmatic artists of the twentieth century. The novel starts with Chagall’s difficult birth in Vitebsk 1887, in the present-day Belarus, and tells the surprising story of how the eldest son of a herring schlepper became enrolled in art school where he quickly gained a reputation as ‘Moyshe, the painting wonder’. The novel paints a vivid picture of a Russian town divided by belief and wealth, rumours of pogroms never far away, yet bustling with talented young artists. In 1913 Chagall relished the opportunity to move to Paris to take up residence in the artist colony ‘The Hive’ (La Ruche). The Yiddish-speaking artists (École Juive) living there were all poor. The Hive had no electric light or running water and yet many of its artists were to become famous, among them Amedeo Modigliani, Chaim Soutine and Osip Zadkine. The novel vividly portrays the dynamics of an artist colony, its pettiness, friendships and the constant battle to find the peace and quiet to work. In 1914 Chagall and his wife Bella made what was supposed to be a fleeting visit to his beloved Vitebsk, only to be trapped there by the outbreak of the First World War, the subsequent Russian revolution and the establishment of the communist regime, which was increasingly hostile towards artists like Chagall. Yet Chagall kept on painting, and the novel provides a fascinating account of what inspired some of his greatest work. He eventually managed to return to France, only to be thwarted by another world war, which proved disastrous for the people he knew in Vitebsk, the people in his paintings, including his uncle Neuch, the original ‘fiddler on the roof’.