Cover artwork by Gillian Ayres (June 2010), High Summer World of Light, 2009, oil on canvas, 198.5 x 275cm, Courtesy Alan Cristea Gallery.
Ayres was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 1989. She was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1986, and in 1991 became a Royal Academician. She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2011 Birthday Honours. Ayres is represented by Alan Cristea Gallery, www.alancristea.com
Nobody wants to be alone: everybody wants to belong. Sociability is part of what makes humans such a successful species, but it’s when groups become gangs that the fun stops and the trouble starts …
You’ll find plenty of gangs in the following pages: some you’ll want to join, some you’d run a mile from – and maybe even some to which you already belong. In this month’s issue of Litro we’re going to intrigue, move and unnerve you with tales of chain gangs and girl gangs, school gangs and old-fashioned gangsters; gangs that protect and those that destroy. From the mob instincts of the lads on the lash in Yorgos Trillidis’s Sunday, to the swashbuckling adventures of a pirate crew in Michael Spring’s brilliantly surreal Narky Jack, we’ve got gangs in all their glamour and glory.
Sara Maitland’s atmospheric jungle-set Watu explores the power and vulnerability of being an outsider in a tribal society, whereas David Mildon’s Red gives us a glimpse of tribes closer to home, when football fans clash. Meanwhile, Tessa North brings us the Deep South, and a prisoner desperate to shed his chains, while Melissa Katsoulis’s true account of a daring literary hoax shows just how far one middle-class white girl went to feel part of the gang.
But believe it or not, that’s not all – not by a long shot. We’ve also got a brand-new, prize-winning translation of a Verlaine poem about a gang of harlequins and pierrots, a mobster hoist by his own car-yard, and a shoot-out in a cinema.
So, it’s up to you. Do you wanna be in our gang? Just turn the page.
Katy Darby
Editor
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