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Mike Marqusee (; 27 January 1953 – 13 January 2015) was an American writer, journalist and political activist in
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
.
Marqusee's first published work was the essay "Turn Left at Scarsdale", written when he was a sixteen-year-old high school student in New York and included in the 1970 collection "High School Revolutionaries".
Marqusee, who described himself as a "
deracinated New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
Marxist
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
Jew
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""Th ...
", lived in
Britain
Britain most often refers to:
* The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands
* Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...
from 1971. He wrote mainly about
politics
Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...
,
popular culture
Popular culture (also called mass culture or pop culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as, popular art or mass art) and objects that are dominant or prevalent in a ...
, the
Indian sub-continent
The Indian subcontinent is a physiographical region in Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian Ocean from the Himalayas. Geopolitically, it includes the countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India ...
and
cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...
, and was a regular correspondent for, among others, ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'', ''
Red Pepper'' and ''
The Hindu
''The Hindu'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper owned by The Hindu Group, headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It began as a weekly in 1878 and became a daily in 1889. It is one of the Indian newspapers of record and the secon ...
''. After he was diagnosed with
multiple myeloma
Multiple myeloma (MM), also known as plasma cell myeloma and simply myeloma, is a cancer of plasma cells, a type of white blood cell that normally produces antibodies. Often, no symptoms are noticed initially. As it progresses, bone pain, an ...
in 2007, he wrote extensively on health issues, and in defence of the
National Health Service
The National Health Service (NHS) is the umbrella term for the publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom (UK). Since 1948, they have been funded out of general taxation. There are three systems which are referred to using the " ...
. His book ''The Price of Experience: Writings on Living with Cancer'' was published in 2014.
Marqusee was the editor of ''
Labour Left Briefing
''Labour Briefing'' is a monthly political magazine produced by members of the British Labour Party.
History and profile
The magazine began in 1980 as ''London Labour Briefing''. The founders were the members of the Chartist Minority Tendency, w ...
'', an executive member of the
Stop the War Coalition
The Stop the War Coalition (StWC), informally known simply as Stop the War, is a British group established on 21 September 2001, shortly after the September 11 attacks, to campaign against what it believes are unjust wars.
The Coalition has c ...
and the
Socialist Alliance and wrote for
Left Unity. He was also a leading figure in
Iraq Occupation Focus
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
. In 2014, he was working on a proposed biography of the writers
Tom Paine
Thomas Paine (born Thomas Pain; – In the contemporary record as noted by Conway, Paine's birth date is given as January 29, 1736–37. Common practice was to use a dash or a slash to separate the old-style year from the new-style year. In th ...
and
William Blake
William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of the Romantic Age. ...
.
Marqusee's partner was the
barrister
A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include taking cases in superior courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, researching law and ...
Liz Davies
Liz Davies (born 1963) is a British barrister, author and political activist who advocates socialist feminism.Liz Davie"In praise of feminism" ''Morning Star'', 22 March 2013 She is the daughter of the Oxford academic and historian of Tudor Englan ...
.
He died in January 2015, aged 61, of
multiple myeloma
Multiple myeloma (MM), also known as plasma cell myeloma and simply myeloma, is a cancer of plasma cells, a type of white blood cell that normally produces antibodies. Often, no symptoms are noticed initially. As it progresses, bone pain, an ...
.
"Both in the eloquence of his writing and the deep humanism of his vision, Mike Marqusee stands shoulder to shoulder with the spirits of
Isaac Deutscher
Isaac; grc, Ἰσαάκ, Isaák; ar, إسحٰق/إسحاق, Isḥāq; am, ይስሐቅ is one of the three patriarchs of the Israelites and an important figure in the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. He was th ...
and
Edward Said
Edward Wadie Said (; , ; 1 November 1935 – 24 September 2003) was a Palestinian-American professor of literature at Columbia University, a public intellectual, and a founder of the academic field of postcolonial studies.Robert Young, ''White ...
." –
Mike Davis, author of ''City of Quartz''.
Sports writing
An ardent sports fan, Marqusee won considerable renown for his work on cricket. ''War Minus the Shooting'', his book on the
1996 Cricket World Cup
The 1996 Cricket World Cup, also called the Wills World Cup 1996 after the Wills Navy Cut brand produced by tournament sponsor ITC, was the sixth Cricket World Cup organised by the International Cricket Council (ICC). It was the second World Cu ...
, has been lauded as a "riveting, revelatory and largely run-free account".
[Steen, Rob. "Cricket minus the cliches: War Minus the Shooting." '']Cricinfo
ESPN cricinfo (formerly known as Cricinfo or CricInfo) is a sports news website exclusively for the game of cricket. The site features news, articles, live coverage of cricket matches (including liveblogs and scorecards), and ''StatsGuru'', a d ...
''. 23 August 2008
File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...
(accessed December 12, 2008)
Before it was published, wrote Rob Steen, "observations of subcontinental cricket emanating from Britain, and just about every other corner of the so-called old world, tended to be clichéd, wrongheaded, derisive, patronising or just plain racist. Small wonder, then, that it took a London-based American with a rucksack, a notebook and a
CLR James
Cyril Lionel Robert James (4 January 1901 – 31 May 1989),Fraser, C. Gerald, ''The New York Times'', 2 June 1989. who sometimes wrote under the pen-name J. R. Johnson, was a Trinidadian historian, journalist and Marxist. His works are in ...
ian yen for Marxism to supply an overdue corrective."
[ Duncan Campbell of '']The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' wrote that "One of the best books ever written on cricket, ''Anyone But England'', is by an American writer, Mike Marqusee."
Partial bibliography
* ''Slow Turn'' (Sphere, 1988)
* ''Defeat from the Jaws of Victory: Inside Kinnock’s Labour Party'' (co-author with Richard Heffernan) (Verso Books
Verso Books (formerly New Left Books) is a left-wing publishing house based in London and New York City, founded in 1970 by the staff of ''New Left Review''.
Renaming, new brand and logo
Verso Books was originally known as New Left Books. The ...
, 1992).
* ''War Minus the Shooting: a journey through South Asia during cricket’s World Cup'' (Mandarin, 1997).
* ''Chimes of Freedom: the Politics of Bob Dylan’s Art'' (The New Press
The New Press is an independent non-profit public-interest book publisher established in 1992 by André Schiffrin[Aurum Press
The Quarto Group is a global illustrated book publishing group founded in 1976. It is domiciled in the United States and listed on the London Stock Exchange.
Quarto creates and sells illustrated books for adults and children, across 50 countri ...]
, 2005),
* ''Redemption Song: Muhammad Ali and the Spirit of the Sixties'' (Verso Books, 2005).
* ''Wicked Messenger: Bob Dylan and the Sixties ''(Seven Stories Press
Seven Stories Press is an independent American publishing company. Based in New York City, the company was founded by Dan Simon in 1995, after establishing Four Walls Eight Windows in 1984 as an imprint at Writers and Readers, and then incorpora ...
, 2006). .
* "Imperial whitewash - feelgood versions of British history are blinding us to the ways in which we are even now repeating it", ''The Guardian'', 31 July 2006
* ''If I Am Not for Myself: Journey of an Anti-Zionist Jew'' (Verso, 2008). An extract appeared in ''The Guardian''.
* "Why I became British" (''The Guardian'', 16 February 2010)
* "I don't need a war to fight my cancer" (''The Guardian'', 28 December 2009)
* ''Street Music: Poems'' (Clissold Books, 2012).
* ''The Price of Experience: Writings on Living with Cancer'' (OR Books, 2014)
* "Fifty years of Bob Dylan's stark challenge to liberal complacency" (''The Guardian'', February 2014)."Fifty years of Bob Dylan's stark challenge to liberal complacency"
''The Guardian'', February 2014.
References
External links
Mike Marqusee's homepage* Colin Robinson
Mike Marqusee obituary ''The Guardian'', 15 January 2015.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Marqusee, Mike
1953 births
2015 deaths
Deaths from multiple myeloma
American male journalists
American Marxists
American expatriates in the United Kingdom
Marxist journalists
Jewish anti-Zionism in the United Kingdom
Jewish socialists
People from New York (state)