John Berger

John Berger was an English art critic, novelist, painter, poet and author. His novel G. won the 1972 Booker Prize. His seminal essay on art criticism Ways of Seeing, was written as an accompaniment to his 1972 BBC TV series of the same name.

‘Clarity is more important than money’

After winning the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1972, John Berger spoke out against the award’s historic roots in Caribbean exploitation: “This is why I have to turn this prize against itself.”

By John Berger

/ 3 Jan 2017

Rostia Kunovsky: Fenêtres Lettres

On an incognito yet convivial art which animates even when there is no promise of survival

By John Berger

/ 27 Sep 2013

Let Vietnam live!

"The simple issue around which all the history of the rest of the century will concentrate: are we in the privileged quarter of the world, going to continue to exploit the other three quarters?"John Berger in England for Oxford Vietnam Week (Jan. 25 – 31, 1967).

By John Berger

/ 5 Nov 2012

Railtracks

"Impossible now to think of train travel without a kind of tenderness - as if that is what love is: arrival after arrival". A conversation between the writers Anne Michaels and John Berger, in dialogue with a photographic journey through southern Bohemia, evokes the intimate meanings and shared be

By John Berger

/ 5 Nov 2011

The Time We Live

What might we hope for from life? Watching the London riots from afar John Berger finds a small passport that lets him visualise what is missing from a looter's expectations

By John Berger

/ 23 Aug 2011

John Berger: a life in Gaza

We are now spectators of the latest - and perhaps penultimate - chapter of the 60 year old conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people. About the complexities of this tragic conflict

By John Berger

/ 29 Dec 2008

Wall and Bulldozer

Last night I watched the president address the nation. Earlier in the week 3 million people - mostly students - were demonstrating in the streets against the new law which allows firms

By John Berger

/ 4 Apr 2006

Undefeated despair

1 How is it I am still alive? Ill tell you Im alive because theres a temporary shortage of death. This is said with a grin, which

By John Berger

/ 13 Jan 2006

That have not been asked: ten dispatches about endurance in face of walls

The worst cruelties of life are its killing injustices. John Berger on poverty, desire, storytelling, and the futures gift to the present. 1 The wind got up in the

By John Berger

/ 16 Feb 2005

Quicksilver

Susan Sontag - quicksilver darting between past and future to shed light on the otherwise dark present - and your conscience that travelled almost at the speed of light. I recall playing

By John Berger

/ 30 Dec 2004

The decisive moment: John Berger interviewed

openDemocracy: Why do you think that the current presidential election in America is so significant that it demands people turn out and vote? John Berger: I can count a good

By John Berger

/ 26 Oct 2004

Michael Moore, artist and patriot

Fahrenheit 9/11 is astounding. Not so much as a film although it is a cunning and moving film but as an event. Many commentators try to dismiss the event

By John Berger

/ 16 Aug 2004