Feeling Bullish: On My Great-Uncle, Gay Matador and Friend of Hemingway
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Karen Olsson | Notes on Craft
Karen Olsson
Karen Olsson shares her notes on the craft of writing: ‘Every book is an unsolvable problem, and yet every time I convince myself I’m just on the verge of cracking it.’
The Wind That Lays Waste
Selva Almada
‘Leni’s last image of her mother is from the rear window of the car.’
In Conversation
Elvia Wilk & Leah Dieterich
‘Dystopia is always already here, and so is utopia. What does it mean to accept that we're already living in both?’
Night on Fire
Darcey Steinke
‘I know what’s going to happen and I know that it’s going to be bizarre.’
Granma’s Porch
Alexia Tolas
Alexia Tolas’ Granma’s Porch is the Caribbean regional winner of the 2019 Commonwealth Short Story Prize.
The Biggest House on Earth
Choi In-Ho
‘What is happiness? Nothing other than pausing at the bottom of the stairs to admire the portrait of a beautiful queen from some distant, foreign land.’
Stuck in Trees (with Apologies to Ian Frazier)
Jessica Francis Kane
‘On 8 January 2018, I noticed a large bunch of purple balloons in a tree near my apartment building.’
Dolores
Lauren Aimee Curtis
‘There she is: Dolores. Newly named. Sitting at the kitchen table inside the convent, conscious of how bad she must smell.’
Beetle
Joanna Kavenna
An excerpt from ZED, the forthcoming novel by Joanna Kavenna, a Granta Best of Young British Novelist.
Madam’s Sister
Mbozi Haimbe
‘The sister has a headful of fine hair down to the small of her back. The golden colour of maize silk, her weave is not stiff and waxy like Chipo’s, but moves in the breeze.’
The Resurgence of the Monstrous Feminine
Hannah Williams
‘Despite the sheer and uncommunicable amount of violence enacted upon the female body throughout history, it’s woman as terroriser, as beast, that we keep coming back to.’
The Girls and the Dogs
Kevin Barry
‘Maurice turns left, turns right, to loosen out the kinks in his neck. Images slice through him.’
In Conversation
Pallavi Aiyar & Poppy Sebag-Montefiore
‘There’s a lot I’ve written to you that I’ve never said to anyone else before simply because of how much you and I share.’
Boxing
Fatima Farheen Mirza
Fatima Farheen Mirza on navigating gender roles in a Muslim family, wearing hijab and learning how to box.
Death Customs
Constantia Soteriou
Constantia Soteriou’s ‘Death Customs’, translated from the Greek by Lina Protopapa, is the winner of the 2019 Commonwealth Short Story Prize.
All Silky and Wonderful
Ben Pester
A trip on a commuter train takes a surreal turn in new fiction by Ben Pester.
The Way to the Sea
Caroline Crampton
‘Alone in the silent dark, she traversed the mouth of the estuary in mile-long sweeps.’
My Mother Pattu
Saraswathy M. Manickam
Saraswathy M. Manickam’s ‘My Mother Pattu’ is the Asian regional winner of the 2019 Commonwealth Short Story Prize.
A Memory Palace for Brothers Who Flew Just Close Enough to the Sun & Created the Storm
Ellah Wakatama Allfrey
Ellah Wakatama Allfrey remembers Binyavanga Wainaina.
Screaming
Harley Hern
Harley Hern’s ‘Screaming’ is the Pacific regional winner of the 2019 Commonwealth Short Story Prize.
Mother and Son:
Life and Fate
Robert Chandler
‘Nothing made her happier than to sacrifice herself for her son’s happiness.’
A Season on Earth
Gerald Murnane
‘He had forgotten in the seminary how many distractions there were in the world.’
Distributed Denial of Service
Merritt Tierce
‘Once you learn to seal the shell, to make it watertight, you can let anything roil around in there.’
The Sole Purveyor of Madame Bovary in Beijing circa 1989
Amanda Lee Koe
‘In the day, his bevy of besotted rustics were coached in maxims of libertarian socialism. By night: rice wine orgies and folk punk sing-alongs.’
