News about Johanna Spyri

It is seldom taken as a compliment when the word 'cheesy' is used to describe a film. Mad Heidi, the makers of a crowdfunded horror comedy film from Switzerland that has been a surprise hit with critics, is perfectly content to accept the term. Mad Heidi, the country's first 'Swissploitation' film, sees a lovable mountain girl from the Swiss Alps embarking on a blood-soaked rampage to bring down the country's cheese baron-cum-fascist tyrant dictator. Heidi, played by British actress Alice Lucy, is based on the eponymous character in Swiss author Johanna Spyri's best-selling children's books. And the film, which includes gratuitous nudity, brutality, and levels of gore that would make Tarantino blush, seems to be well on its way to becoming a cult classic.

Patrick McCabe, the Irish author of The Butcher Boy and The Dead School, explains Poguemahone. Poguemahone, an anglicization of the Irish word "póg mo thóin", which means "kiss my a**"), is a book about an Irish brother and sister who are living in England. Dan, the brother and unreliable narrator, shifts the focus between a squat in Kilburn, north London, and a care home in Margate, where his sister Una is living with dementia. The free-verse writing is robust, rumbunctious, and occasionally come out-loud funny. I'm also reading an early copy of The Madness, Fergal Keane's account of living with post-traumatic stress disorder. In October, it will be published as a powerful, moving tale about a man struggling to remain afloat.