‘Smoking cigarettes has become the only element of real freedom in my day-to-day existence.’
The problem is, it’s just not enough to live by the rules. Sure, you manage to live by them. Sometimes it’s tight, extremely tight, but on the whole you manage. Your tax papers are up to date. Your invoices paid on time. You never go out without your identity card (and the special little wallet …
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‘The anglophone world, we have to infer, has run out of words for its own feelings.’
Daisy Hildyard on the wisdom of scarecrows.
‘What is the read receipt for?’
Lillian Fishman on texting, power and the ethics of leaving a friend on read.
‘Like pretty much everyone who uses the internet, I have seen many terrible things that I did not search for and that I cannot unsee.’
Rosanna McLaughlin on what the internet thinks she wants.
‘I have a pathological addiction to the internet, which I indulge with the excuse of making art. It rarely translates to anything good and mostly leaves me overstimulated and afraid.’
Paul Dalla Rosa on excess and the internet.
‘rumors of bees on speedwell, / no oxidative stress just / effortless pollination’
Two poems by Sylvia Legris.
‘Finally! I thought. Now I get to work in a big factory. I was fifteen and a half years old. I was a child laborer.’
Xiao Hai on coming of age in the factories of Shenzhen, translated by Tony Hao.
‘When you live underground, among the things you discover is that you are not alone.’
Fiction by Rachel Kushner.
‘Fus was twenty-five, he wasn’t a kid. What was he doing hanging out with fascists?’
An excerpt from What You Need From the Night. Translated from the French by Shaun Whiteside.
‘I went to Enid’s funeral and there was a mole on the coffin and it seemed / aware of us but unconcerned.’
Two poems by Fee Griffin.
‘You live at the track, your life is full.’
An excerpt from Kathryn Scanlan’s new work of fiction, Kick the Latch.
‘Pakistan is a nation of memory keepers. We feed our memories as if they are guests at tea, pay homage to them.’
