Surviving Autocracy
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Laurent Gaudé | On Europe
Laurent Gaudé
‘Fervent social awareness and civic passion have deserted today’s Europe.’ Translated from the French by Alison Anderson.
Exile
Elif Shafak
‘The first time I heard the word exile – sürgün – in Turkish, I was a child. It struck me how closely it rhymed with another word: hüzün – melancholy.’
On the Island of the Black River
William Atkins
William Atkins visits the remote island of Sakhalin, following in the footsteps of Anton Chekhov.
Windrush Reflections
Anthony (Vahni) Capildeo
‘It is not informational, it is / not a blameshift, it is not / all-lives-matter top down and sideways blank.’
Homeland
Walter Kempowski
‘I was suckled by Mother Earth, he would reflect on occasion, and he would stretch, feeling new strength in his veins.’
Fugato
Rafael Frumkin
New fiction from Rafael Frumkin, featuring psychiatrists brandishing DSM–5, delusions, transference and the menacing voice of Alex Trebek.
In Conversation
Robert Macfarlane & Adam Scovell
‘Travelling into the Ness for the first time was exactly like Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker’
Robert Macfarlane in conversation with Adam Scovell.
Manifest
’Pemi Aguda
‘It is their turn to be silent. Your hand is throbbing in protest. There is blood on your knuckles.’ New fiction from ’Pemi Aguda.
Out of the Ashes
Geovani Martins & Julia Sanches
New fiction by Geovani Martins, with a translation and thoughts on translation from Julia Sanches.
Not the Foggiest Notion
Jung Young Moon
‘It didn’t matter to me what we would be doing or where. It didn’t matter to me in the least.’ Jung Young Moon, translated from the Korean by Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton.
[The Delicate Architecture of the Withdrawal Agreement]
Kevin Breathnach
‘I, the pulse. I, the task. I, the ions of the documents extant. I, I, I as in, irrealidad, ingles, intruido.’
Scissors
Karina Sainz Borgo
‘They reached Cúcuta at midday. All of them except the grandmother were hungry.’
Drawings of Monsters
Jesse Ball
‘When I was 4 or 5 I sent the Queen of England drawings of monsters.’
Neoterics and the Field
(out of Callimachus)
John Kinsella
‘This oven this earth as dust this water we watch vanish and ancient’
Connecting Worlds, Inventing Worlds
José Eduardo Agualusa & Daniel Hahn
José Eduardo Agualusa and Daniel Hahn on translating and being translated. ‘As a humble, invisible translator, I let him get the last word.’
Black Car
Will Boast
‘It got into you. How many scrapes had he seen? How many wrecks?’ New fiction from Will Boast.
Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones
Edoardo Albert
Edoardo Albert, author of Warrior, writes about five archaeological findings that brought the past to life.
On Tastelessness
Adam O’Fallon Price
‘Write through your first ending is advice I give, again and again.’
Lauren Aimee Curtis | Notes on Craft
Lauren Aimee Curtis
‘I think that if we knew, really understood, the reasons why certain stories take hold of us, we would have no need for fiction at all.’ Lauren Aimee Curtis shares her notes on the craft of writing.
A Clean, Well-Lighted Place
Peter Stamm & Michael Hofmann
Peter Stamm on the oldest barber in Switzerland, and Michael Hofmann on translating Peter Stamm.
How to Take a Literary Selfie
Sylvie Weil
Sylvie Weil on what it means to take a literary selfie. Translated from the French by Ros Schwartz.
Jianan Qian | First Sentence
Jianan Qian
‘For every witness, history unfolded at some other time, and in some other place.’ Jianan Qian on the first sentence of her story, ‘To the Dogs’.
Real Men
Mohamed Mbougar Sarr
Anna Leader’s translation of ‘Real Men’ by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr is the winner of the 2019 Harvill Secker Young Translators’ Prize.
Lois and Varga
Lisa Taddeo
‘Shells, like the kind on the sand of the beach, that’s all they are. That’s all any of us are. All these colored shells, each one trying to be picked up before the rest.’ New fiction by Lisa Taddeo.
Little Nothings: Nabokov’s Road Notes
Elsa Court
Elsa Court on why Vladimir Nabokov immersed himself in the all-American world of roadside service stations.
