Jianan Qian | First Sentence
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Soup
Greta Stoddart
‘I know how old she is because every time I look at her, I think of how I’ll kiss her closed eyes and be among those to watch her body as it’s lowered into the ground.’
Fiction by Greta Stoddart.
Two Poems
I.S. Jones
‘It’s been said when you eat a goat’s eye you dream of its life’
Two poems by I.S. Jones.
My Poor Parents
Walter Siti
‘They’re no good, and if they’re no good I don’t see why I should have to love them simply because they’re my parents.’
Fiction by Walter Siti, translated by Brian Robert Moore.
Tea in the Sahara
Quan Barry
‘I’m almost fifty, my life a series of devaluations – from wannabe actor to wannabe director to wannabe screenwriter to this.’
Fiction by Quan Barry.
Miss Siti Mustika
Faisal Tehrani
‘From the moment Miss Siti Mustika began to sing, all the other candidates were stunned and greatly embarrassed.’
Fiction by Faisal Tehrani, translated by Muhammad Haji Salleh.
Groan
Denise Rose Hansen
‘Women with long fingernails want children before thirty-five, I think. Women with short fingernails don’t know.’
Fiction by Denise Rose Hansen.
McDoone
Dan Hofstadter
‘Bobby McDoone was somebody I’d always known, and like most old buddies he was part ally, part rival – but with a difference.’
Fiction by Dan Hofstadter.
Crab Sticks and Lobster Rolls
Kathleen Ridgwell
‘She wears a push up bra and a low-cut top, much to the admiration of the surfers. But it is not their attention she seeks.’
Fiction by Kathleen Ridgwell.
Mothers Not Appearing in Search
Joshua Lubwama
‘It was the universal dream. Cristiano Ronaldo earned more money in one week than the best engineer or lawyer did in one year. The boys knew that and I knew it, too.’
Fiction by Joshua Lubwama.
Descend
Chanel Sutherland
‘Down here, a thought was a precious thing. It carried our entire lives.’
Fiction by Chanel Sutherland.
Margot’s Run
Subraj Singh
‘Margot, whose feet seemed to work on their own, having memorized the pathways.’
Fiction by Subraj Singh.
Playing Dead & On Haunting
Rae Armantrout
‘Analogies are useful / for scaring spirits off.’
Two poems by Rae Armantrout.
An Eye and a Leg
Faria Basher
‘“You’re an expiring woman,” said the doctor, pointing at me. “This happens to women of a certain age.”’
Fiction by Faria Basher.
Ending it in Turn
Anne Serre
‘Something slightly odd united us at times: a form of cruelty.’
Fiction by Anne Serre, translated by Mark Hutchinson.
From Perverts
Kay Gabriel
‘you dreamt of the CUNY / Graduate Center library / on fire, you dove in to save Stalin’s / copy of Capital’
Poetry by Kay Gabriel.
Trying to Rejoin the Sun
Paula Fourie
‘He saw himself as nothing more than a man holding a pen.’
Paula Fourie remembers her husband, Athol Fugard.
Los Angeles, Indiana
Jesse Barron
‘The material becomes a fable about Los Angeles, a city that is always watching itself watch itself.’
Jesse Barron on Los Angeles and Gary Indiana’s final novel.
Dead Friends
Thomas Meaney
‘Dead friends come to us unbidden – in unexpected moments, in dreams. They remain in conversation. In these pages, writers have transmitted the flickering aura of their departed friends.’
The editor introduces the issue.
Burning Mao
Fernanda Eberstadt
‘On 7 December 1976, I finally succeeded in pestering my parents into introducing me to Andy Warhol.’
Fernanda Eberstadt on her friendship with Andy Warhol.
Posterity
Joshua Cohen
‘The festival dedicated to his late father was scheduled to open tomorrow evening on the Mediterranean island of Midorca and the evening after that Acker was set to present his remarks at the Biblioteca Pública de Midorca.’
Fiction by Joshua Cohen.
All Being Well
Susie Boyt
‘Of course your head would get muddled with the other person’s at the end. It was just the practical side of “for better or for worse”. That was friendship so much more than marriage.’
Fiction by Susie Boyt.
Mark Cawson Lives
Mark Cawson & Iain Sinclair
‘In Smiler’s confrontational images, the dead outnumber the living.’
Iain Sinclair introduces Mark Cawson’s photography.
Nowhere
Yasmina Reza
‘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.
When Rhinestones Star the Night and You Find Yourself Thinking Fondly of Dave Hickey
Anne Carson
‘Look, the / blessings should surprise you, not / the pain.’
Poetry by Anne Carson.
Watching, Content & Colombia
Audun Mortensen
‘I make a certain effort / to give my sister in Korea / the impression / that I am interested’
Poetry by Audun Mortensen.
The Conservation of Mass: On Resomation
William Atkins
‘If it has ever fallen to you to scatter someone’s ashes, especially those of someone you loved, you might share my sense of the process as tantamount to fly tipping, the stuff resembling nothing so much as cat litter.’
William Atkins on disposing of the dead.
Unruly Light
Ming Smith & Tobi Haslett
‘Some restless, formless element thrums deep within the portraits and stalks through every streetscape.’
Photography by Ming Smith, introduced by Tobi Haslett.
Note to Self & Gentle Rain
Robert Walser
‘Note to self: Take a walk / to go see Hermann Hesse’
Two poems by Robert Walser, translated by Damion Searls.
Killing Stella
Marlen Haushofer
‘I read somewhere that you can get used to anything, and habit is the strongest force in our lives.’
Fiction by Marlen Haushofer, translated by Shaun Whiteside.
Benoît
Michel Houellebecq
‘I’ll never be able to order an œuf mayonnaise in a restaurant without thinking of him – literature can do that, when the description is perfect.’
Michel Houellebecq on his friend Benoît Duteurtre.
Cell Phone
Krystyna Dąbrowska
‘Each time I’m in her country, my translator / lends me the phone of her dead husband.’
A poem by Krystyna Dąbrowska, translated from the Polish by Karen Kovacik.
