__NOTOC__ Mike Marqusee (; 27 January 1953 – 13 January 2015) was an American writer, journalist and political activist in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, 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 dow ...

. 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

Marxist Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialecti ...

Jew", lived in Britain 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 st ...

, 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 ...

'', '' 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 sec ...

''. 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, ...

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'', an executive member of the Stop the War Coalition and the Socialist Alliance and wrote for Left Unity. He was also a leading figure in Iraq Occupation Focus. In 2014, he was working on a proposed biography of the writers Tom Paine 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 Romantic poetry, poetry and visual art of t ...

. 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 givin ...

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 England ...

. He died in January 2015, aged 61, of

. "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 and Edward Said." – 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, 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 ...

''. 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 i ...

ian yen for Marxism to supply an overdue corrective." Duncan Campbell of ''

'' 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, 2003). * ''Anyone but England: An Outsider Looks at English Cricket'' (

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 countr ...

, 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 incorpo ...

, 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)