{"id":2498,"date":"2024-11-16T12:03:12","date_gmt":"2024-11-16T11:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sabotage.ninja\/?post_type=product&#038;p=2498"},"modified":"2026-03-21T12:02:52","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T11:02:52","slug":"the-state-is-the-enemy-essays-on-liberation-and-racial-justice","status":"publish","type":"product","link":"https:\/\/www.sabotage.ninja\/en\/product\/the-state-is-the-enemy-essays-on-liberation-and-racial-justice\/","title":{"rendered":"The State Is the Enemy: Essays on Liberation and Racial Justice"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Incendiary and heartrending, the sixteen essays in <i>The State Is the Enemy<\/i> lay bare government brutality against the working class, immigrants, asylum seekers, ethnic minorities, and all who are deemed of \u201ca lower order.\u201d Drawing parallels between the Turkish State&#8217;s atrocities against the Kurds and the racist police brutality and government-sanctioned murders in the UK, James Kelman shatters the myth of Western exceptionalism, revealing the universality of terror campaigns levied against the most vulnerable and calling on a global citizenry to stand in solidarity with victims of oppression. Kelman\u2019s case against the Turkish and British governments is not just a litany of murders or an impassioned plea\u2014it is a cool-headed takedown of the State and an essential primer for revolutionaries.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Praise<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cJames Kelman changed my life.&#187;<br \/>\n\u2014Douglas Stuart, author of <em>Shuggie Bain<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u201cProbably the most influential novelist of the post-war period.\u201d<br \/>\n\u2014<em>The Times<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u201cKelman has the knack, maybe more than anyone since Joyce, of fixing in his writing the lyricism of ordinary people\u2019s speech. \u2026 Pure aesthete, undaunted democrat\u2014somehow Kelman manages to reconcile his two halves.\u201d<br \/>\n\u2014<em>Esquire<\/em> (London)<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe greatest British novelist of our time.\u201d<br \/>\n\u2014Sunday Herald<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA true original. \u2026 A real artist. \u2026 It\u2019s now very difficult to see which of [Kelman&#8217;s] peers can seriously be ranked alongside him without ironic eyebrows being raised.\u201d<br \/>\n\u2014Irvine Welsh, <em>Guardian<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u201cA writer of world stature, a 21st century Modern.\u201d<br \/>\n\u2014<em>The Scotsman<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe real reason Kelman, despite his stature and reputation, remains something of a literary outsider is not, I suspect, so much that great, radical Modernist writers aren\u2019t supposed to come from working-class Glasgow, as that great, radical Modernist writers are supposed to be dead. Dead, and wrapped up in a Penguin Classic: that\u2019s when it\u2019s safe to regret that their work was underappreciated or misunderstood (or how little they were paid) in their lifetimes. You can write what you like about Beckett or Kafka and know they\u2019re not going to come round and tell you you\u2019re talking nonsense, or confound your expectations with a new work. Kelman is still alive, still writing great books, climbing.\u201d<br \/>\n\u2014James Meek, <em>London Review of Books<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe greatest living British novelist.\u201d<br \/>\n\u2014Amit Chaudhuri, author of <em>A New World<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat an enviably, devilishly wonderful writer is James Kelman.\u201d<br \/>\n\u2014John Hawkes, author of <em>The Blood Oranges<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>About the Author<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.pmpress.org\/authors-artists-comrades\/james-kelman\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>James Kelman<\/strong><\/a> was born in Glasgow, June 1946, and left school in 1961. He began work in the printing trade then moved around, working in various jobs in various places. He was living in England when he started writing: ramblings, musings, sundry phantasmagoria. He committed to it and kept at it. In 1969 he met and married Marie Connors from South Wales. They settled in Glasgow and still live in the dump, not far from their kids and grandkids. He still plugs away at the ramblings, musings, politicking and so on, supported by the same lady.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Author: James Kelman<br \/>\nSeries: PM Press\/Kairos<br \/>\nISBN: 9781629639680 \/ 9781629639765<br \/>\nPublished: 08\/01\/2023<br \/>\nFormat: Paperback \/ Hardcover<br \/>\nSize: 5 x 8<br \/>\nPages: 256<br \/>\nSubjects: Political Science \/ Colonialism &amp; Post-Colonialism, Human Rights, Religion, Politics &amp; State<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":2499,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}}},"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[127,30],"product_tag":[176,57],"class_list":{"0":"post-2498","1":"product","2":"type-product","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"product_cat-books-en","7":"product_cat-books1312","8":"product_tag-pm-press","9":"product_tag-anarhizm","10":"desktop-align-center","11":"tablet-align-center","12":"mobile-align-center","14":"first","15":"instock","16":"shipping-taxable","17":"purchasable","18":"product-type-simple"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sabotage.ninja\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product\/2498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sabotage.ninja\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sabotage.ninja\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/product"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sabotage.ninja\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2498"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sabotage.ninja\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sabotage.ninja\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"product_brand","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sabotage.ninja\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_brand?post=2498"},{"taxonomy":"product_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sabotage.ninja\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_cat?post=2498"},{"taxonomy":"product_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sabotage.ninja\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_tag?post=2498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}