Index on Censorship presents…
Go East! Sun 29 Aug
Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club, E2 6NB
7pm ’til late Belarus Free Theatre * Comedy: Miriam Elia, The Fix * DJs from Panik.com
A day and night of cabaret, comedy and DJs, with a performance from the sensational underground Belarus Free Theatre!
Join Index on Censorship, the UK’s leading freedom of expression organisation, and the Belarus Free Theatre at the Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club, for a packed night of cabaret, comedy from Sony award short listed Miriam Elia and The Fix – and all-night mischief. Come and see a mischievous mix of Belarusian funk DJs, live music, cabaret and comedians – all for the exceptionally brave people who dare to speak up, and challenge Belarus’s dictator Lukashenko.
The multi-award winning Belarus Free Theatre, banned in their native Belarus, is renowned for staging underground and uncensored performances that draw attention to the continuing problems faced by Belarusians in “Europe’s last dictatorship”. Their recent performances, including at the Soho Theatre, London and the Under the Radar Festival, New York, have won widespread acclaim. On July 13 the troop performed a rendition of ‘Numbers’ in an event hosted by Index on Censorship and presented by Tom Stoppard at the Free Word Centre in London.
Confirmed DJs: Panik, Mr. Chips, DJ Perry Stroika and the Tblisi Sound Machine & DJ Gaz Nost.
Index on Censorship’s Mike Harris took part in a discussion on the use of social media and protest at the Frontline Club on Tuesday night with Sina Motalebi of BBC Persian TV, Sunny Hundal of Liberal Conspiracy, Benjamin Chesterton of Duckrabbit, and Mexico Reporter founder Deborah Bonello. Watch it below
Former Index on Censorship editor Sally Laird died recently after a long battle with cancer. Here, Robert Chandler appreciates an extraordinary translator and journalist
On 15 July I received this message from Mark Lefanu, the husband of Sally Laird: “This is to convey the sad news that Sally died early this morning after a long and gallant battle against cancer. The last days, in hospital, were peaceful and even beautiful, surrounded as she was by the love and care of doctors and nurses, along with the support of beloved daughter and sweet friends.”
Since 1993 Sally and her family had been living in Denmark. I went there to say goodbye to her just two weeks ago. Sally knew she was dying, and she approached death as she approached life — with courage and humour. Towards the end of May, when I was arranging a date for my visit, she wrote, “We have various guests coming off and on through June, but with little gaps in between — and after that — total emptiness from July onwards when I am supposed to be dead but any brave soul is very wecome to plant a flag in my diary.” I replied that, in that case, I would book my train tickets for early July.
Sally was unusually gifted in many ways, probably in more ways than I know. Whatever she set her mind to — a large portfolio of drawings of a family of bears produced at the age of thirteen, her work as chief editor of Index on Censorship in her late twenties and early thirties, the many reviews on Russia-related books that she wrote for Prospect, the TLS, the Guardian and the Observer — she carried out conscientiously and with imagination. Her translations of Petrushevaksaya and Sorokin are note perfect. And I know no book that presents a more nuanced picture of Soviet literary life in the post-Stalin years than Sally’s Voices of Russian Literature: Interviews with Ten Contemporary Writers (OUP, 1999).
The death of a friend always makes one regret lost opportunities. I regret that we never realized our project of collaborating on translating a selection of Ivan Bunin’s short stories — though it is some consolation that I did, at least, have the opportunity to tell her of my regret. I regret that I did not see Sally more often. I do, however, remember all our meetings clearly, and with joy.
Read Sally Laird’s Index on Censorship article “Hope For Dissenters” from 1987 here
