Diane
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Universal Mother
Momtaza Mehri
‘I turn to O’Connor’s music when I get tired of lying to myself. Her songs are allegorical free-falls. Spiritual chiaroscuros, even.’
Momtaza Mehri on Sinéad O’Connor.
Diane
Avigayl Sharp
‘I lied about my age and I lied about my location and I lied about being horny.’
Fiction by Avigayl Sharp.
Introduction
Thomas Meaney
‘There can be any number of significant others in a life. Some we know for a long time; others are meteoric: we may see them only once.’
The editor introduces the issue.
The Museum Guard
J.M. Coetzee
‘Do they strike people as a strange couple? He does not know, does not care.’
Fiction by J.M. Coetzee.
Private View
Sophie Collins
‘Being recognised as part of a couple thrilled me; I felt legitimised. John had a life, a full life.’
Fiction by Sophie Collins.
Embrace
Kevin Brazil
‘Love is a concept about which I have long been very sceptical. I have seen the damage that can be done, and can be justified, in the name of love.’
Fiction by Kevin Brazil.
New Kindness Hatching
Jesse Glazzard & Anthony Vahni Capildeo
‘The invisible artist who invites us to stand beside him is clearly among friends; being kind, being of a kind; witnessing with-ness.’
Jesse Glazzard photographs Camp Trans, with an introduction by Anthony Vahni Capildeo.
The Messiah of Cadoxton
Susan Pedersen
‘The script of script production rather followed the script of sex: it was intimate, exciting, boundary-crossing, and left the participants changed.’
Susan Pedersen on paranormal love in the Balfour family.
Three Mukhatabat
Najwan Darwish
‘He said to me: / Love led me / to pity my own self, / to grieve it / with a vertical grief.’
Poetry by Najwan Darwish. Translated from the Arabic by Kareem James Abu-Zeid.
A Woman I Once Knew
Rosalind Fox Solomon & Lynne Tillman
‘These are not gentle, passive female bodies. They are strong women who strike poses that show aggression.’
Lynne Tillman introduces Rosalind Fox Solomon’s self-portraits.
A Journey to Ayodhya
Snigdha Poonam
‘Ask anyone in Ayodhya, and they will say the city’s Hindu–Muslim harmony can withstand any test.’
Snigdha Poonam on the construction of a Hindu temple on the ruins of a mosque in Utter Pradesh.
Bitter North
Alexandra Tanner
‘Eight years in, Hal felt like another her, somehow.’
Fiction by Alexandra Tanner.
Literature Without Literature
Christian Lorentzen
‘Corporate publishing is the channel through which literature happens to flow at this moment in history.’
Christian Lorentzen dissects the literary establishment.
The Weight of the Earth
Debmalya Ray Choudhuri & John-Baptiste Oduor
‘The presence of another person at the scene is suggested. The image invites you to imagine their position and to mentally assume it.’
Photography by Debmalya Ray Choudhuri, introduced by John-Baptiste Oduor.
Gold Fever in the Coup Belt: The Mines of Mauritania
James Pogue
‘The whole arc of the failed promise of development became legible in the traces of the gold rush.’
James Pogue reports from the gold mines of Mauritania.
The Pneuma Illusion
Mary Gaitskill
‘The intensity of it seemed in retrospect something inexplicable, like a sudden opening in the sky with an outpouring of visions.’
Mary Gaitskill on her experiences with Pneuma therapy.
Lígia
Victor Heringer
‘Today, three years after I befriended him to see him die, the idea of losing Sr Mendes has left me all mixed up.’
A short story by Victor Heringer, translated by James Young.
Lovers’ Quarrel
Tamara Nassar
‘Certainly we are not too old for that day / as dense as age on your bedroom floor.’
Poetry by Tamara Nassar.
Armance
Fleur Jaeggy
‘I don’t think much of the very silly, even gullible, person that I am.’
Fiction by Fleur Jaeggy, translated by Gini Alhadeff.
Dispatch from Kyiv
Yevgenia Belorusets
‘Against the backdrop of the Russian onslaught, all everyday concerns, the facts and things that make everyday life, literally life, seem like luxuries.’
Yevgenia Belorusets on conscription in Ukraine.
Death to Books
Luke Allan
‘In her concern for making a tidy death, my mum overlooked that other kind of mess which is grief, and guilt, and confusion.’
Memoir by Luke Allan.
Honeymoon
Allen Bratton
‘On all sides he is surrounded by old people: jowly liver-spotted men in wrinkled suits, brown-toothed women in Thatcher drag, holding forth with tiresome decorum on coal imports, road safety, the economy of Northern Ireland.’
Fiction by Allen Bratton.
Podcast | Sheila Heti
Sheila Heti
‘It ended up taking fourteen years. But on the other hand, it only ended up taking five minutes.’
Sheila Heti on writing her latest book, Alphabetical Diaries, editing and the instability of a self-portrait.
Cracked Plate
Nicola Dinan
‘Later that day, Emma had thought of Nina while Toby fucked her in bed. Isn’t that fucked? Thinking about the other girl he was fucking. Her friend.’
Fiction by Nicola Dinan.
Bed of Nails
Kathy Stevens
‘I should warn you, she said, ketchup on her chin, on the back of her hand. I like to have sex a lot.’
Fiction by Kathy Stevens.
In Conversation
Robert Gluck & K Patrick
‘Desire charges the landscape with physical upheaval. We become water, weather. And why not? Why describe a character by the hat she is wearing instead of her experience of orgasm?’
Robert Glück and K Patrick on writing desire.
Power Metals
Nicolas Niarchos
‘The city, which is home to more than 300,000 people, is collapsing into the millions of shallow, square holes that have been cut into the ground.’
Nicolas Niarchos on mineral extraction in Manono, the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The Material
Camille Bordas
‘Rehearsing in front of the mirror was for actors, according to them, not comedians. It was for vain people. A good comedian was the opposite of vain, they said.’
Fiction by Camille Bordas.
Podcast | Andrew O’Hagan
Andrew O’Hagan
‘The world comes down on your head if you don’t tell people what they already believe to be true.’
Andrew O’Hagan on truth, journalism and fiction.
Aishwarya Rai
Sanjana Thakur
‘The shelter houses one hundred and fifty women who used to be or long to be or have no choice but to be Mothers.’
Fiction by Sanjana Thakur.
Dite
Reena Usha Rungoo
‘She collected stamps when she was younger, then switched to books, degrees, and – when she moved abroad – white lovers.’
Fiction by Reena Usha Rungoo.
The Devil’s Son
Portia Subran
‘He was prone to what he did call adventures, like if he had an irrepressible pull to wander every trace and tributary contained in Chaguanas.’
Fiction by Portia Subran.
