The Scarecrow
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How to Count Like a Pro
Amy Leach
‘Clocks are the consummate counters, even better than bankers because they never sleep and especially they never dream.’
A lecture to animals by Amy Leach.
A Portrait of My Mother
Michael Collins (Photographer)
Photographer Michael Collins on his mother’s life following a series of strokes.
The Story of Anya
Mazen Maarouf
‘The dreams were packed together like coloured soap bubbles.’
Short fiction by Mazen Maarouf, translated from the Arabic by Jonathan Wright.
An Instrument of Pure Motion
Tommi Parrish
‘They say they are too busy but actually they are too busy for you.’
The Young Entrepreneurs of Miss Bristol’s Front Porch
Sidik Fofana
‘Every black girl on my block was waitin to get a look at Kandese when she first come for the summer. Her grandmuhva told us she hit a teacher with a ruler and got kicked out of her school in Harlem.’
Fiction by Sidik Fofana.
Why We Walk
Ian Willms & Adam Foulds
‘There are glimmers of the reality beyond, the promise of redemption even in the darkest places.’
Adam Foulds introduces the photography of Ian Willms.
Yena
Che Yeun
‘Close, the way any two girls around here grow close, because there isn’t much else to do, and anyone who makes you forget how little there is to do, anyone who makes your heart race, is someone you suddenly cannot live without.’
Short fiction by Che Yeun.
Binyavanga
Pwaangulongii Dauod
‘There are many writers, including myself, who owe their careers to Binyavanga. He was the most generous writer of his generation.’
Pwaangulongii Dauod remembers the late Binyavanga Wainaina.
Japanese Wives
Noriko Hayashi
‘Every time I remember that moment, I can’t help but cry. I was only twenty-one years old.’
A photoessay by Noriko Hayashi.
The Second Career of Michael Riegels
Oliver Bullough
‘The new law was technical and complicated, but created something genuinely new: the international business company, a hyper-deregulated shell corporation.’
Oliver Bullough investigates the history of shell companies in the British Virgin Islands.
The novel
Jack Underwood
‘Only they don’t know / that this silence is what they yearn for.’
A new poem by Jack Underwood.
This time
Jack Underwood
‘I’m going to give them a linear sense of time, just one direction, all the way!’
A new poem by Jack Underwood.
In Conversation
Eimear McBride
‘Spending time in a place in which you have no personal stake breeds a peculiar kind of contemplativeness.’
History is a Music Box
Channa Riedel
‘My hands are cupped around the names written on the tablets of stone.’
Oath to the Queen
Xiaolu Guo
Xiaolu Guo on The Archers, the Life in the UK Test and swearing allegiance to the Queen.
Bear
Naomi Ishiguro
‘My wife and I lay side by side, the bear looming over us in the same way a crucifixion scene looms above the pews inside a Catholic church.’
Short fiction by Naomi Ishiguro.
Jaan Kaplinski | On Europe
Jaan Kaplinski
‘For European thinkers, defining things has always been a serious hobby.’
Jaan Kaplinski on Europe.
Indelicacy
Amina Cain
‘Every morning and night I walked through that city, to and from the museum.’
From Amina Cain’s new novel.
The Third Rainbow Girl
Emma Copley Eisenberg
‘I felt ruined by my time in Pocahontas County – no other place would ever be so good.’
An excerpt from Emma Copley Eisenberg’s The Third Rainbow Girl.
Late Arrival
Clemens Meyer
Two women working shifts in a train station make a connection in this short story translated from the German by Katy Derbyshire.
The Shop
Anthony Veasna So
‘I am not saying you cannot be gay. How hard is it to be normal and gay?’
The Normal Life
Dulce Maria Cardoso
‘Blood had started to come out from within, thick and dark blood that forced me to use sanitary pads every month.’
Low
Jeet Thayil
‘Quitting drugs – what an idea. How final and unaccommodating. Like being left without faith or protection in a pagan world.’ An extract from Jeet Thayil’s Low.
No Justice, No Peace
Chris Knapp
Chris Knapp on the systemic racism and violence of the French police, and the grassroots organisations that are campaigning for change.
Five Images from the Life of Georg Trakl
Mathias Énard
‘We think we see Georg Trakl in this last photograph but we do not see him.’
Goat-Herd Errant: Jim Corbett and the American borderlands
William Atkins
‘The book is a manifesto for the revival of pastoral nomadism – leading goats from pasture to pasture and surviving on their milk and wild plants.’ William Atkins on Jim Corbett’s Goatwalking.
Best Book of 1987: The Door
Hannah Williams
‘Szabó offers a veneration of the rituals of the everyday, for how pride in what we do, in how we give to others, can elevate us.’ Hannah Williams on The Door by Magda Szabó, the best book of 1987.
