You Can't Please All: Memoirs 1980-2024

by Tariq Ali

A memoir of the political-intellectual life of the revolutionary writer Tariq AliThis volume covers four The Eighties and Nineties when the author was no longer engaged in active politics as a party-member of any sort, but had moved sideways to politico-cultural Setting up Bandung Productions (with Darcus Howe) and launching the Bandung File, a unique current affairs show on Channel Four and subsequently Rear Window that mixed culture, politics and ideas.A mixture of anecdotes, reflections, jottings and story-telling the book covers defeats and the rise of new social, political, anti-imperialist. His friendship with Hugo Chavez and trips to most of South America at the height of the Bolivarian wave The characters who appear in the book reflect life in the Eighties and beyond to the present day.There are pen-portraits of Edward Said, the intellectuals that founded and re-launched the New Left Edward Thompson, Perry Anderson, Raphael Samuel as well as his time at Private Eye, the LRB and The Guardian.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, History, Memoir, Politics, Pakistan

816 pages, Hardcover

Published November 5, 2024

About the author

Tariq Ali (Punjabi, Urdu: طارق علی) is a British-Pakistani historian, novelist, filmmaker, political campaigner, and commentator. He is a member of the editorial committee of the New Left Review and Sin Permiso, and regularly contributes to The Guardian, CounterPunch, and the London Review of Books.

He is the author of several books, including Can Pakistan Survive? The Death of a State (1991) , Pirates Of The Caribbean: Axis Of Hope (2006), Conversations with Edward Said (2005), Bush in Babylon (2003), and Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity (2002), A Banker for All Seasons (2007) and the recently published The Duel (2008).

Reviews

[Adam McPhee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tariq Ali has been everywhere, met everyone, and still managed to produce a hefty body of work. Impressive.

[Differengenera · Rating 5 out of 5]

biggest complaint is not an audiobook. on the one hand could perhaps have done with an editor, on the other I find the sprawling rambling structure endearing. what a life, goes everywhere talks to everyone interested in almost everything, if the self presentation can be relied on. and you'd wonder, there's a lot of 'needless to say I had the last laugh'.
do editors of left journals have as much fun these days? I suppose TA had to put in a lot of time with the staff of Private Eye, they sounded insufferable, particularly post-Cockburn. I didn't realise he had a hand in Bandung file.
a lot about the affiliations and disputes within nlr editorial board if you're like me, the kind of sicko interested in that stuff. less detail on the attempted Brennerite / Croatian nationalist coup though, sad!
platonic ideal of one-handed read while bottle-feeding

'He [Ernest Mandel] complained about two minor scenes in the novel, both set in Brazil. During the first I had depicted him and his much younger Brazilian girlfriend, Maya, cavorting naked on a deserted beach, making love and swimming restfully to recover in the calm sea. His complaint here was this was clearly meant to ridicule. I tried to convince him to the contrary but failed'.

'Doris Lessing...stopped me on Hampstead Heath one day: 'is it the case that the Russians have now slaughtered twenty million people in Afghanistan?' 'No', I replied. 'That is the entire population of the country'.

[Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

Already knew a fair amount about the guy but this was still fascinating. Maybe a bit long