News about Stephen Spender

Sarah Watling's enchanting book brings alive with great detail a small group of believable characters who went to Spain during the Civil War, putting them in jeopardy. Fired by absolute certainty that right was on their side, they were determined, with words, photographs, and actions, to warn the rigidly non-interventionist United States, Britain, and France that they must intervene to stem the tide of fascism that has swept across Europe. They were purely optimistic, determined to make the world a better place.

In 1941, the celebrated English author (pictured right), who was plagued by mental illness throughout her life, drowned herself in the River Ouse near her Sussex home. The latest £50,000 bronze statue, which was unveiled this week, is in bad taste, 'insensitive,' and may even lead to similar suicide attempts, according to campaigners. However, Woolf's great-great niece Sophie Partridge (far left) said at the unveiling ceremony that the project had a "very narrow way of thinking," and that her late relative should not be defined by the way she died.