’Shortly after its publication in 1980 I was surprised to learn that I had written a travel book’.
Shortly after its publication in 1980 I was surprised to learn that I had written a travel book. I knew nothing about literary genres then, but felt an instinctive recoil, as if my intentions had been misunderstood. I had indeed walked alone through the deserts of my country, Australia, and I had us…
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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.
‘Hearing, they say, is the first of the senses we develop in the womb.’
‘By the end of our journey together we had signally failed to understand each other, yet an unlikely, even unprecedented connection had formed.’
‘Culture has been bound up since the beginning with extraction.’
The editor introduces the issue.
‘Many people in the country seem happy to accept mercenaries in exchange for stability.’
James Pogue on the Wagner Group in the Central African Republic.
‘After making sure our guests all had the drinks and/or drugs they required, I put on a Sun Ra record.’
A short story by Benjamin Kunkel.
‘After all, they were landlady and tenant; what right did he have to meddle?’
