A New Year for Revolutionary Arts and Letters

In the dark times
Will there also be singing?
Yes, there will also be singing
About the dark times.

- Bertolt Brecht, "Motto," from Svendborg Poems (1939)

Even as our horizons darken, and the winds of war and fascism blow across the land like an apocalyptic winter storm's, the essential work of cultural production – of writing, art-making, and music-making – continues, as it has a way of doing in times of military aggression, political repression, and economic immiseration.

In the "armed madhouse" that is our country – where historic levels of inequality and unfreedom define our daily life; where the president can wage foreign wars at will; where oil-slick oligarchs can seize the wealth of sovereign nations; where secret police can disappear whole families, and murder mothers with impunity; where survival remains a constant struggle for the people of the global majority – in such a country, under such conditions, it is no small feat to persist in this work.

In light of our collective calamities, artistic and literary labor can be seen as superficial, unserious, or unimportant. Nothing could be further from the truth.

These are, after all, among the indispensable ingredients that have gone into every successful insurgency known to history. In the face of a reactionary media and a counter-revolutionary culture such as ours, any revolutionary movement worth its salt must invent its own language – whether verbal or visual, sonic or cinematic – and use it, in the words of Toni Cade Bambara, to "make revolution irresistible."

In 2026, this is the culture worker's calling. At the present moment in history, no "creator" worthy of the name can escape this historical responsibility. It is up to each and every artist, every writer, every performer, to take sides in this fight for a freer future, a liberated culture, and a better and more beautiful world.

With this in mind, I want to call your attention to a series of new(ish) and forthcoming works in the world of arts and letters, which are distinguished by their commitment to radical truth-telling and to the revolutionary transformation of society, and which I am looking forward to reading, seeing, and hearing in 2026.

Books

Molly Crabapple, Here Where We Live Is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund (Penguin Random House).

Samuel Delany, Last and First Tales (Coffee House Press).

Anand Gopal, Days of Love and Rage: A Story of Ordinary People Forging a Revolution (Simon & Schuster).

Ghassan Kanafani, Palestinian Resistance Literature Under Occupation, 1948-1968 (Verso Books). Note: Translated into English for the first time.

Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor, End Times Fascism: And the Fight for the Living World (Macmillan).

Christopher Mathias, To Catch a Fascist: The Fight to Expose the Radical Right (Simon & Schuster).

Toni Morrison, Language as Liberation: Reflections on the American Canon (Penguin Random House).

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, The Edge of Space-Time: Particles, Poetry, and the Cosmic Dream Boogie (Penguin Random House).

Rebecca Solnit, The Beginning Comes After the End: Notes on a World of Change (Haymarket Books).

Steven Thrasher, The Overseer Class: A Manifesto (HarperCollins).

Films

Kaouther Ben Hania, The Voice of Hind Rajab

Molly Bernstein and Philip Dolin, Disaster Is My Muse

Chinonye Chukwu, Death of a Salesman

Jonás Cuarón, Campeón Gabacho

Sidney Fussell and Jennifer Holness, #WhileBlack

Alex Gibney, Musk

László Nemes, Moulin

Michael Premo, Homegrown

Boots Riley, I Love Boosters

Poh Si Teng, American Doctor

Records

Ablaye Cissoko, Estuaire

Cain Culto, Occulto 001

Doechii - D1

Gogol Bordello, We Mean It, Man!

Gorillaz, The Mountain

Jill Scott, To Whom This May Concern

Kneecap, Untitled

Mavis Staples, Sad and Beautiful World

Nas and DJ Premier, Light-Years

Tune-Yards, I Love Boosters (Soundtrack)