Lucky Punk
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I Won’t Let You Go
Hiromi Kawakami
‘I have no idea why I felt so drawn to the mermaid, but the pull was irresistible.’
Fiction by Hiromi Kawakami, translated by Allison Markin Powell.
Dazzling
Chịkọdịlị Emelụmadụ
‘I saw it all. Nobody here gives children ear, so I saw everything just by being quiet and doing like I dinor see.’
An extract from Dazzling by Chịkọdịlị Emelụmadụ.
What You Need From the Night
Laurent Petitmangin
‘Fus was twenty-five, he wasn’t a kid. What was he doing hanging out with fascists?’
An excerpt from What You Need From the Night. Translated from the French by Shaun Whiteside.
The Flesh Strip
Adrian Van Young
‘No person or doll had anatomy like that. It was, she reasoned, some mistake, a dud in the assembly line, but something about it felt special, auspicious.’
A story by Adrian Van Young.
Hungry Ghosts
Kevin Jared Hosein
‘This was no longer a fight, Krishna realised. This was a point of no return.’
An excerpt from Hungry Ghosts by Kevin Jared Hosein.
In Conversation
Pico Iyer & Caryl Phillips
‘The immigrant’s dream – that he or she can make a better life for the children – becomes a kind of tragedy when it comes true.’
Pico Iyer and Caryl Phillips discuss migration, V. S. Naipaul and the meaning of home.
Tantrum
Lucie Elven
‘When I looked back, I felt a jolt – some forgotten, tearful part of me becoming magnified. Why would you stay with a person wielding a broom or an axe?’
New fiction from Lucie Elven.
Moving Nowhere Here
Kimberly Campanello
‘I am afraid to say we are all / progressing or regressing / down a more or less screwy road / found on a very old map / until / we are going Nowhere.’
A poem by Kimberly Campanello.
Trembling
Maru Ayase
‘I always felt this way whenever a fresh stone grew inside me.’ A story by Maru Ayase, translated from the Japanese by Haydn Trowell.
Brutes
Dizz Tate
‘It was a Saturday and we had nothing to do like every other day of our lives.’
An extract from Brutes by Dizz Tate.
Three Poems
Seán Hewitt
‘I looked away, ashamed, / then raised my hand / to the hawthorn / and plucked its fruit.’
Poetry by Seán Hewitt.
Notes on Craft
Lee Lai
‘I’ve loved experiencing the page as a map, as something to be wandered across.’
Lee Lai on the function of page and panel in comics.
Self-Replicating Textual Worms
Lucy Mercer
‘Sometimes, it is better to not know what is behind the veil, decode the sign.’
Lucy Mercer on motherhood, emblems and obscurity.
Two Poems
Eleni Sikelianos
‘in the animal mirror my incisors / were not fangs but surely / they could still tear / meat’
Two poems by Eleni Sikelianos.
Two Poems
Fee Griffin
‘I went to Enid’s funeral and there was a mole on the coffin and it seemed / aware of us but unconcerned.’
Two poems by Fee Griffin.
The Premonitions Man
Hanif Kureishi
‘The man died as Arnold predicted. It kept happening, and it was disconcerting, terrifying, like being possessed or going mad.’
A new story by Hanif Kureishi.
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.
