‘In the nineteenth century, Charles Baudelaire wrote of Paris being haunted by its past, by ‘ghosts in daylight.’
One cold evening in late November last year I left my flat in southern Paris, took the métro to Saint-Denis, a suburb to the north of the city, and then a bus to an outlying council estate, or cité, called Villiers-le-Bel. The journey took little more than an hour but marked a sharp transition bet…
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‘We meet at various points in the great swathes of the past that neither of us were alive to witness.’
Allen Bratton on a daytrip to a castle with his older boyfriend.
‘Listening to three white poets, whom I suspect are academics, talk about the state of poetry.’
Oluwaseun Olayiwola eavesdrops on an older generation.
‘I’d been dubious about his company at first.’
Sarah Moss on watching Shakespeare with her twelve-year-old son.
‘She didn’t trust us because, to her, tenants were like children.’
Kate Zambreno on negotiating with her older landlady.
‘A moment now swallowed in embarrassment, I asked a question only a young person might ask an older one.’
Lynne Tillman on trying to understand what makes a generation.
‘What I like most is that the staff are all card-carrying Communists – very militant and all passionate about what they are doing.’
‘The suspected ringleader was a 71-year-old real-estate developer with an engineering degree.’
Jan Wilm on an attempted coup in 2022.
‘I’m simply trying to do good, Sharon, in the way that I can.’
Fiction by Marie NDiaye, translated by Jordan Stump.
‘The place we come from, the place we call home, is the home of our suffering.’
Jamaica Kincaid talks about finding her way to writing.
‘Always I tell myself: yes, you transmit but do they, the readers, receive?’
Colin Grant on distilling truth in memoir.
