Join us for the book launch of Against Miserabilism, a posthumous collection of essays by the late David Widgery. An evening not to be missed, this will be the only event in Scotland for this book.
The evening will include readings and a Q&A with contributors to the book (including colleagues and family members of David Widgery). Admission is free and all are welcome. Refreshments will be available.
About Against Miserabilism
“Socialists are people too. Their lives are not all about ‘politics’. Indeed the strength of Widgery’s writings is to show how it is only the lived experience of people’s lives that makes their politics real. There are only a handful of revolutionary socialists who have ever been able to write convincingly about popular music, about suffering and dying – and indeed self-critically about the successes and failures of the socialist movement itself. It is astonishing to read pieces written 30/40 years ago that are so prescient. This collection is a living memorial to and by one of the finest writers and critics ever produced by the revolutionary left.” – Stuart Weir, former editor of the New Statesman (1987-91); founder of the democratic movement Charter 88
About David Widgery
David Widgery was born in London in 1947 and died in 1992. He lived and worked as a socialist doctor in the East End of London for twenty-two years. He was the author of six books: The Left in Britain 1956 – 68 (1976), Health in Danger (1979), Beating Time (1986), The National Health (1988), Preserving Disorder (1989), and Some Lives!: A GP's East End (1991). He was a regular contributor to the New Statesman and Society, Socialist Worker and The British Medical Journal as well as writing occasional articles for numerous underground and socialist magazines and journals. He also wrote articles for the Guardian and Observer newspapers.