The Maulana bends down at the washbasin and draws water to his face.
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The tourists are gone. They’ve fled to Islamabad, along with the landlords and the hoteliers and the battalions of police that used to defend them, and certainty has left with them.
The Maulana bends down at the washbasin and draws water to his face.
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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.
Fatima Bhutto was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, and grew up in Syria and Pakistan. Her most recent writing includes the novel The Runaways and a non-fiction book about the changing world of global pop culture, New Kings of the World.
Photograph © Pankaj Mishra
‘In a connected world, how can anyone close their doors?’
‘Though I have had dogs all my life, Coco is my first real companion.’
Fatima Bhutto on grief.
‘I have gone to the forest to lie among the moss and sleep under a canopy of trees. I have gone to the forest to root among the soil and listen to the birds.’
‘If you happen to be friends with one of the world’s most fearsome food critics, don’t cook for him.’
‘This had happened once before, / when my life first split / into comfort and pain.’
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