Mixes art thought politics and ethics to explore the terrors of the modern age from Auschwitz to Abu GhraibHow can works of the imagination help us to understand good and evil in the modern world In this new collection of essays Alex Danchev treats the artist as a crucial moral witness of our troubled times and puts art to work in the service of political and ethical inquiry He takes inspiration from Seamus Heaney s dictum the imaginative transformation of human life is the means by which we can most truly grasp and comprehend it This is a book of blasphemers world menders troublemakers torturers and turbulent priests of every persuasion A distinctive mix of art and politics addressing a tremendous range of ethical artistic and political questionsEngages with fundamental and controversial issues of international life terror torture secrecy privacy memory and identity