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Touch Me Like One of Your Island Girls: A Love Story
Megan Kamalei Kakimoto
‘Was the sunburn part of the shtick? she wondered while the video continued to play.’
A story by Megan Kamalei Kakimoto.
Notes on Craft: Does this Count?
Ben Pester
‘Is the act of complicating a perfectly nice daydream a craft?’
Ben Pester on the craft of imagination.
Love, Leda
Mark Hyatt
‘It’s terrible to be young, always randy; one needs material.’
An extract from Love, Leda by Mark Hyatt.
The House on El Estero
Fernanda Melchor
‘The girl vomited with rage as Jorge recited the prayer. She struggled and squirmed, kicked and spat.’
A story by Fernanda Melchor, translated by Sophie Hughes.
The Chosen Death of the Witch
Lucy Ives
‘He came to see, after a long agony, that it would be best to give it up.’
A new story by Lucy Ives.
Death is not here
Wouter Van de Voorde
Concerned with the uneasy boundary that emerged between life and death during the pandemic, Death is not here takes fossilisation and excavation as its theme.
Photography by Wouter Van de Voorde.
Amalur
Liadan Ní Chuinn
‘So maybe I knew for a while that I loved my boyfriend’s family and not him.’
Fiction by Liadan Ní Chuinn.
Two Poems
Michael Bazzett
‘It was a commonplace / to enter the woods / with meat, lay it on the ground, then / wait for what might come.’
Poetry by Michael Bazzett.
On Marguerite Duras
Kate Zambreno
‘Everyone says you were beautiful when you were young.’
Kate Zambreno on Marguerite Duras.
What Feathers Know
Stephen Rutt
‘I see a gull in a car park and they can see the place where it metabolised water into feathers, food into energy, oxygen into blood.’ Stephen Rutt on what isotopes can tell us about birds.
Four Poems
Katie Farris
‘Ungraceful, the heart boinks: / drugged, suspended, spiderwebbed – ’
Four poems by Katie Farris.
Two Poems
Claudine Toutoungi
‘Most of us these days are dead or on autopilot / As for the wolves – they thrive’
Two poems by Claudine Toutoungi.
Introduction
Sigrid Rausing
‘What precisely is the sibling relationship, and how does it shape our lives?’
The editor introduces the autumn issue.
O Brother
John Niven
‘Up on the light box on the wall are the scans of Gary’s brain, bone white standing out against smoked grey.’
John Niven remembers the last days of his brother, Gary.
The Durhams
Ben Pester
‘We have this space and we have permission to summon each other into it. Sibspace.’
Fiction by Ben Pester.
Nightstand
Natalie Shapero
‘you gotta see this truck that ignored the height sign / on the underpass and now it’s lodged like an overlarge pill’
A poem by Nathalie Shapero.
Plastic Mothers
Lauren John Joseph
‘In essence she acted as though I were the kid her mother had left her to raise.’
Lauren John Joseph on the blurred contours of motherhood.
Brother
Vanessa Onwuemezi
‘Brother, to be your sister is to confront the possibility of having been other than I am.’
Vanessa Onwuemezi on the meaning of sisterhood.
Miniature Twins
Omer Friedlander
‘We were so small, palm-sized, that our parents went to a doll shop in Jerusalem to find clothes that would fit us.’
Omer Friedlander writes about his twin.
Wales 2013–2022
Sebastián Bruno & Sophie Mackintosh
‘Sebastián Bruno’s careful documentation of the communities of South Wales, is made up of images stark in their beauty.’
Sophie Mackintosh introduces photography by Sebastián Bruno.
Siblings
Karolina Ramqvist
‘I asked her why she hadn’t told me I had a sister before, and she said she’d thought it was for my father to tell, since she was his child.’
Karolina Ramqvist on finding her estranged siblings, translated from the Swedish by Saskia Vogel.
A Little Closer
Angelique Stevens
‘We were twelve and thirteen and smoking cigarettes in our basement with friends – Mom and Dad at work, Hall & Oates on forty-five.’
Angelique Stevens recalls the year her sister went missing.
The Making of the Babies
Lee Lai
‘I can’t believe it’s been two years since we’ve been able to get together and we’re still just arguing about which of us incurs more shit from the aunties.’
A graphic short story by Lee Lai.
Betwixt and Betwin
Taiye Selasi
‘There has to be sameness if you are twins. If there isn’t it has to be invented.’
Taiye Selasi on trying to escape from twinhood.
Rain
Colin Barrett
‘As Scully and Charlie Vaughan passed under the trees in the town square, the afternoon seemed to switch on and off around them.’
Fiction by Colin Barrett.
The Tiddler
Charlie Gilmour
‘It was a competition, though I hadn’t realised that yet.’
Charlie Gilmour on bullying.
The Stripping of Threads
Jamal Mahjoub
‘I hold no illusions about us being reunited. All of this has gone on for far too long.’
Jamal Mahjoub on family obligation and estrangement.
George
K Patrick
‘Like the way George / Michael filled his jeans. Mothers like a man who can / fill his jeans.’
A poem by K Patrick.
Looking at My Brother
Julian Slagman & Alice Hattrick
‘Slagman’s photographs counteract the medical narrative as well as the medical gaze.’
Alice Hattrick introduces photography by Julian Slagman.
These Stolen Twins
Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow
‘In our household there was no distinction of feeling between those who were biologically related and those who were simply instructed to regard each other as such.’
Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow on growing up with foster siblings.
Captions
Andrew Miller
‘I note that my brother – he’ll deny it but he was always the moody one – has apparently refused to take Granny’s hand.’
Andrew Miller reflects on three family photographs.
The Pain Cave
Lauren Groff
‘I would rather have died of hypothermia than let my siblings win.’
Lauren Groff on competitiveness.
Ray & Her Sisters
Sara Baume
‘Ray is the only sister to win a scholarship to boarding school.’
Sara Baume tells the story of her grandmother’s life.
My Eye
Suzanne Brøgger
‘You were Father’s and I was Mother’s.’
Memoir by Suzanne Brøgger, translated from the Danish by Caroline Waight.
