‘I want to tell you everything,’ he said. ‘You’ll understand.’
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‘My name is Javier Cercas, just like you.’
‘I want to tell you everything,’ he said. ‘You’ll understand.’
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‘Feelings can be very obscure but numbers never lie.’
Kevin Brazil on metrics, obsession and fitness.
‘An intense workout is an ecstasy of punishment packaged as self-improvement.’
Mary Wellesley on exercise, ritual and Barry’s Bootcamp.
‘I was not good at sports because I would not do sports because I did not have the body for sports because I would not do sports.’
Saba Sams on girlhood, embodiment and avoiding sports.
‘Following United rarely brings me any great joy and most often it depresses me. If I could disengage, I would.’
Jonny Thakkar on Manchester United.
‘I deployed my body against an opponent like a blunt and effective instrument.’
John Patrick McHugh on playing Gaelic football.
Javier Cercas is the author of three novels: Soldiers of Salamis, which won the 2005 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, The Speed of Light and The Tenant & The Motive. ‘Agememnon’s Truth’ is taken from the collection La verdad de Agamenón: crónicas, artículos, ensayos y un cuento.
More about the author →Anne McLean has translated writings by, among others, Julio Cortázar, Tomás Eloy Martínez and Carmen Martín Gaite. Her translations of Soldiers and Salamis, The Speed of Light and The Tenant & The Motive by Javier Cercas are published by Bloomsbury.
More about the translator →
‘I have no house, from time to time I dream of having one, not a holiday home but a house to bury myself in.’
Memoir by Yasmina Reza, translated by Alison L. Strayer.
‘He takes the knife, cuts the barb from the body, sends it back to the depths of the river.’
An extract from Not a River by Selva Almada, translated by Annie McDermott.
‘The past is no longer behind me but in front.’
An extract from About Ed by Robert Glück.
‘How do we imagine the past of those we love?’
Arthur Asseraf on family and fractured memories.
‘you notice / that some of these men / are full of passionate music / while others pain your ears’
Poetry by Elvis Bego.
‘It’s always been like this for me with spirituality. I catch a whiff of the numinous, and it turns visceral in a moment.’
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