‘The guru looked discomfited, as if he’d been caught doing something inappropriate. At the same time, he looked somewhat triumphant.’
He rang the doorbell once, and waited for the door to open. It was an ornate door, with a rather heavy, ornamental padlock. When the old, smiling maidservant opened it, there was a narrow corridor behind her which revealed a large hall and further rooms inside, like shadows contained in a prism.
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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 am I doing in London? And what’ll I do once I’m back in India?' Amit Chaudhuri on identity, youth and nostalgia.
‘Never, long as I live, will I forget the few days I had spent with the Millers.’ Buddhadeva Bose on his friendship with Henry Miller.
‘A scene in which nothing is ostensibly happening will absorb me; so will a paragraph that contains no vital piece of information.’
‘A sudden rustling in your chest. A premonition of understanding.’
Fiction by Banana Yoshimoto, translated by Asa Yoneda.
