An English Opening
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Indigenous Defenders: Why Tribes Do Conservation Better Than Conservationists
Fred Pearce
A chapter from A Trillion Trees: How We Can Reforest Our World.
The Sum of Life’s Troubles Makes a Whole Damn Dish
Nuraliah Norasid
‘I have become the muscle of the operation, folding butter and egg yolks into the flour and kneading all two kilograms of dough’.
Nuraliah Norasid on women’s work.
In Conversation
Abi Palmer & Alice Hattrick
The authors discuss the practice of writing about illness, explore the idea of crip time and critique the value of medical labels.
Three Poems
fred spoliar
‘We could live in the cities of / A very normal family like I like / writing copy for it.’
Three poems by fred spoliar.
Notes on Craft
Juliet Jacques
Juliet Jacques on writing her trans and non-binary characters into being.
Pourquoi avec son Père?
Jeet Thayil
‘To read Baudelaire, he said, is to gather up the world and bring it inside.’
Jeet Thayil on remembering Baudelaire in Paris and Cochin.
In Conversation
Hatty Nestor & Nathalie Olah
A discussion on the class system, the decline of criticism and driving on American highways, by the authors of Ethical Portraits: In Search of Representational Justice and Steal as much as you can.
Appamma in London
Anuk Arudpragasam
An excerpt from A Passage North, longlisted for the Booker Prize.
Me, Rory and Aurora
Jonas Eika
A new story by Danish writer Jonas Eika, from the collection After the Sun. Translated by Sherilyn Nicolette Hellberg.
Up Late
Nick Laird
An elegy by Nick Laird for his father, Alastair Laird, who died this year of Covid-19.
A Series of Rooms Occupied by Ghislaine Maxwell
Chris Dennis
‘What is the metaphor of the room? Of the house. Of the neighborhood.’
Chris Dennis on incarceration.
THE STARS OF THE FAST & FURIOUS FRANCHISE HAVE A CLAUSE IN THEIR CONTRACTS THAT SAYS THEY CAN NEVER LOSE A FIGHT
Sasha Debevec-McKenney
‘Another spring, another sequel.’
A poem by Sasha Debevec-McKenney.
In the Aftermath
Eva Freeman
‘Green would work but blue, cobalt blue to be precise, would be better.’
Fiction set in Flatbush by Eva Freeman.
Variations
Tao Lin
‘But in variation #5 they spent ten hours together.’
An extract from Tao Lin’s novel Leave Society.
A Place I’d Go To
Kathryn Scanlan
‘They were very old and had to be carried down the hall to the examination room and lifted onto and off the scale like sacks of tender, bruisable fruit.’
A story by Kathryn Scanlan.
Soft Pink Light
Kaitlin Maxwell & Lynne Tillman
‘The stigma is to be a woman.’
Lynne Tillman introduces the photography of Kaitlin Maxwell.
Tides
Sara Freeman
‘She has always wanted this: to slip beneath the surface, to dispossess herself.’
An extract from Sara Freeman’s forthcoming novel.
How Prayer Works
Kaveh Akbar
‘My brother and I hurried through sloppy postures of praise, quiet as the light pooling around us.’
A new poem by Kaveh Akbar.
Cuba
Vanessa Onwuemezi
‘The hotel is pink all over, as the bitten inside of her mouth, as her dark father’s radiant bottom lip’.
A story by Vanessa Onwuemezi, from her collection Dark Neighbourhood.
Traces
Ruchir Joshi
‘Calcutta is an hourglass and each person is a grain of sand. Each day, we all pour through the opening.’
Photographs and memoir by Ruchir Joshi.
The Repeat Room
Jesse Ball
‘The place was so squat and pitiless, so endless, repetitive, fluorescent.’
Fiction by Jesse Ball.
A Last Chance in Whitefish
Adam O’Fallon Price
‘The dialogue, of course, is almost entirely invented, though true to the spirit and tone.’
A story by Adam O’Fallon Price.
Stills
Robbie Lawrence & Colin Herd
‘At the start of this pandemic, I had three living grandparents, and now I have one.’
Colin Herd introduces the photography of Robbie Lawrence.
Mbiu Dash
Okwiri Oduor
‘This made me big thirteen, the type to be able to drink mead on Epitaph Day if I wanted.’
A story by Okwiri Oduor.
One Muggy Spring, Thanks, Dot and Secretly Try
Diane Williams
Three short stories by Diane Williams.
Checkout 19
Claire-Louise Bennett
‘Month after month I ruefully drop the most perfect shade of red down the toilet and flush it away.’
An excerpt from Claire-Louise Bennett’s forthcoming novel.
