Jianan Qian | First Sentence
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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.
This Very Complicated Cast of Mind
Renata Adler
‘I thought of her more as a sort of parental figure in the beginning. There was scolding.’
Renata Adler on her friendship with Hannah Arendt.
V.S. Naipaul: The Grief and the Glory
Aatish Taseer
‘To be taught by Naipaul would be an honour, but it also seemed to contain the risk of annihilation.’
Aatish Taseer on being mentored by V.S. Naipaul.
Gian
Tao Lin
‘I felt compelled to publish our potentially worrying, arguably unseemly texts, in which we discussed buying, selling, trading and using a broad assortment of illegal drugs’
Tao Lin on his friendship and correspondence with Giancarlo DiTrapano.
Keep Up
John Patrick McHugh
‘I deployed my body against an opponent like a blunt and effective instrument.’
John Patrick McHugh on playing Gaelic football.
Keep Up
Jonny Thakkar
‘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.
Keep Up
Saba Sams
‘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.
Keep Up
Mary Wellesley
‘An intense workout is an ecstasy of punishment packaged as self-improvement.’
Mary Wellesley on exercise, ritual and Barry’s Bootcamp.
Keep Up
Kevin Brazil
‘Feelings can be very obscure but numbers never lie.’
Kevin Brazil on metrics, obsession and fitness.
The Cage
Tong Wei-Ger
‘The islanders held him in a large dog cage under a banyan tree by the village square, awaiting the day when someone would convey him to a prison camp.’
Fiction by Tong Wei-Ger, translated by Tony Hao.
Just Girls
Sarah Perrin
‘When they repeated that word, “stalking”, it didn’t click. Because you can’t stalk your best friend.’
Fiction by Sarah Perrin.
Podcast | Nico Walker
Nico Walker
‘The military recruits around football – they try to pick up the surplus player population. You couldn't make it on the college team? Well, you know, this is kind of similar. Both are violent.’
Nico Walker on American football.
Interview | Thomas Ruff
Thomas Ruff & Alice Zoo
‘The camera records what’s in front of it, but that reality can be pre-arranged.’
Thomas Ruff speaks to Alice Zoo about light, Bernd and Hilla Becher and the essence of photography.
The Cottage
Isabelle Baafi
‘The scarlet stained my palm – / whether the blood of the berry or of the bird, / I couldn’t tell.’
A poem by Isabelle Baafi.
The Borrowed Hills
Scott Preston
‘The farm was in one of the fourteen green-purple wet deserts, in a dent six miles wide with its shoulders covered in scree and a rainy season that lasts twelve months a year.’
An extract from The Borrowed Hills by Scott Preston.
Fast by the Horns
Moses McKenzie
‘First, a boy was meant to stop following him mama, then him papa, then at around fourteen him become him own man – that’s how Ras Levi say life was suppose to work.’
An extract from Fast by the Horns by Moses McKenzie.
Strange Relations
Ralf Webb
‘For both writers, this is an essential truth in their work. It’s also an essential truth in their lives: they are both queer, and live openly as such.’
Ralf Webb on the friendship between Tennesse Williams and Carson McCullers.
Rural Hours
Harriet Baker
‘Housekeeping, cleaning and tidying were domestic rituals; they had a performative, role-playing quality, but were also ways of feeling at home.’
An extract fromRural Hours by Harriet Baker.
