Olavi Laiho’s aliterative anti-fascist text written in 1944 in Oulu prison just before his execution. First time publsihed in its original Finnish and in English translation. Introduction by Minna Henriksson.   Olavi Laiho (1907-1944) was a writer, political organiser, and communist agitator, who was first imprisoned in 1932 – a time when ‘communist laws’ were in effect in Finland – for producing political material and running an illegal printing press in his home. He opposed Finland’s WW2 era fighting alongside Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union, edited illegal journals, but also planned armed resistance and facilitated correspondence between the party’s leadership in Helsinki and the Soviet embassy in Stockholm. He managed to hide from the police from when the Continuation War broke in summer 1941 until 22nd of December 1942, when he was arrested while visiting his sister in the parish of Paimio. Laiho was sentenced to death for treason and high treason. He was executed on 2nd of September, being the last Finnish citizen to be executed in Finland.  Just a couple of weeks before his execution, Laiho wrote a remarkable essay ‘Katso Koota’ [Look at K], using only words starting with the letter K. It gives a vivid picture of the political situation of the time: the war is still ongoing, but it has become evident that Finland is on the losing side. Not knowing his execution date, Laiho eagerly awaits a new batch of books to arrive at the prison library, enjoying his coffee substitute and the sound of distant music ... ‘Katso Koota’ is an early example of Finnish modern alliterative writing, a lipogram, a literary technique in which every word must start with the same letter. Laiho’s ‘Katso Koota’ predates the French Oulipo (‘workshop of potential literature’) of the 1960s. Considering that he produced his ‘constrained writing’ under conditions of extreme political and cultural confinement, it can be considered a true form of avant-garde subversion.  Published for the first time based on the manuscript at the People’s Archives, the booklet includes its content translation, a short introduction by Minna Henriksson and two illustrations by Kaisa Junttila.  Designed by Otso Peräsaari, the book is printed in 200 copies and is produced in Kalastaman Seripaja silkscreen workshop and If By Magic risography print house. The publication is realised in the context of the Counter-Libraries exhibition at the Library of the Labour Movement, Helsinki.A5 Staplebound, Softcover, 16 pages (Silkscreen and risoprint) Rab-Rab, Helsinki, October, 2025

One hundred years ago, playwright Berta Lask (1878–1967) was commissioned by the German Communist Party to write a play marking the quatercentenary of the German Peasants’ War. She agreed, staging the reappearance of its leader Thomas Müntzer — who awakens every hundred years to address the present, represented in the prologue as a cast of striking proletarians to whom he tells his story. In the play, Lask poses a basic question: What would Thomas Müntzer see if he woke up today? A list accrues: Climate breakdown, imperialism, gendered oppression, earthquakes, genocide, impending fascism. Capitalism didn’t dig its own grave. Rather, the dead oppressors of previous centuries have been resurrected, planted in new bodies, tooled with new modes of bondage, within uneven spatial domination and temporal disjunction. Thomas Müntzer, with all of its time travel and its modes of resurrection, addresses the present from a past multiplied. For the first time, Lask’s play has been translated for a print edition alongside a set of commentaries and interventions: on everything from the “prolatarian problem play” to rainbows and bundles of twigs; from Albrecht Dürer’s monument to the slain peasants to Paul Robeson’s rendition of “Joe Hill”; from revolutionary violence to tragic commemoration.  Translated by Sam Dolbear with Esther Leslie, Joey Simons and Charlotte Thießen, both volumes are edited by Sam Dolbear. The second, commentaries, volume includes contributions by Caroline Adler, Joseph Albernaz, Hunter Bivens, Shane Boyle, Rebecca Comay, Sam Dolbear, Loren Goldman, Danny Hayward, Disha Karnad Jani, Sam Keogh, Henrike Kohpeiss, Esther Leslie, Huw Lemmey, Peter Linebaugh, Hussein Mitha, Vesa Oittinen, Hannah Proctor, Daniel Reeve, Ashkan Sepahvand, O. L. Silverman, Joey Simmons, Kerstin Stakemeier, virgil b/g taylor, and Alberto Toscano. Download as a printable PDF here. Download as a e-book here. It is our hope that readings or performance of the play take place all over the world, to mark the centenary of the play and the quincentenary of the events it depicts.  In the play, Lask poses a basic question: What would Thomas Müntzer see if he woke up today? A list accrues: Climate breakdown, imperialism, gendered oppression, earthquakes, genocide, impending fascism. Capitalism didn’t dig its own grave. Rather, the dead oppressors of previous centuries have been resurrected, planted in new bodies, tooled with new modes of bondage, within uneven spatial domination and temporal disjunction. Thomas Müntzer, with all of its time travel and its modes of resurrection, addresses the present from a past multiplied.  Softcover, A4, 2 x volumes, 92pp/ 112pp Rab-Rab, Helsinki, November 2025 Designed by Ott Kagovere, the two A4 size volumes are wrapped in a poster by artist Sam Keogh.

Wanting Something Completely Different discusses a range of political figures, themes, directors and writers in a series of brief, evocative descriptions (‘vignettes’) aimed at laying out a vision of a modern, cosmopolitan left that can think creatively about the world we live in. The political figures include both thinkers and activists from a wide range of backgrounds — from Frantz Fanon and the Palestinian novelist Ghassan Kanafani to the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the murdered Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya. The themes range equally widely from the death of Walter Benjamin (reconstructed here from a remarkable documentary on the same theme) and the slaying of Pasolini to the work of British Marxist Perry Anderson, or the corrupt nature of India’s leading corporate groups, or the outstanding contributions of Italian and U.S. Black feminists to feminist theory. And under the rubrics which discuss film and literature, there is the same striving for diversity and depth. Jairus Banaji is a historian who received the Isaac and Tamara Deutscher Memorial Prize in 2011. His academic work has ranged widely across sources and languages, with major books on Late Antiquity and (most recently) commercial capitalism as well as numerous papers and articles. The vignettes collected in this Rab-Rab book reflect the same dazzling versatility and passion for ideas. They were first circulated on Facebook over some seven years or more and are reproduced here with a new introduction and extensive bibliographical references and notes. Designed by Ott Kagovere, the book is printed in 500 copies and can be ordered either directly from our website or through our distributors. Wanting Something Completely Difrerent - 111 Vignettes of Left-Wing Figures, Themes, Films & Writers Softcover, A4 Rab-Rab, 2nd edition, Summer 2025