Hold Your Fire
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The Power of a Name
Rebecca Tamás
‘When English is the dominant everything, you can’t help wanting to fight for the little speck of the rest of your self.’
Maid Marian
Lisa Taddeo
‘It had taken Noni many years to stop wishing she’d been a woman like that.’
A Mother’s Dilemma
Victor Lodato
‘I can hear the girl scratching a pencil inside a notebook. I don’t like it. I’ve asked her not to write about me.’
The Governesses
Anne Serre
‘For the governesses, moving in with Monsieur and Madame Austeur was like a homecoming.’
On Meeting Mrs Obama
Sarah Ladipo Manyika
‘Michelle’s story, while deeply rooted in the American story, speaks to experiences that are universal.’
The Pine Islands
Marion Poschmann
‘Gilbert Silvester woke up distraught. Mathilda’s black hair lay spread out on the pillow next to him, tentacles of a malevolent pitch-black jellyfish.’
Two Poems
Yanyi
‘It murmurs beneath the crust of the ground, or a person who serves as the ground you stand on.’
Radicalisation in the Digital Age
Marc Weitzmann
Marc Weitzmann on how radicalisation happens in the digital age.
Animalia
Jean-Baptiste Del Amo
An excerpt from Animalia by Jean-Baptiste Del Amo, translated from the French by Frank Wynne.
The Poem in the Pocket
Héctor Abad Faciolince
‘The note stated that it was by Borges, and I believed that, or at least I wanted to believe it.’
Ghostlands
Jennifer Kabat
Jennifer Kabat on the Anti-Rent War, one of the earliest moments of rural populism in the US, and something few know about outside the Catskill Mountains.
On High Heels and Lotus Feet
Summer Brennan
Summer Brennan on high heels, foot-binding, and our ongoing performances of gender.
The Polyglot Lovers
Lina Wolff
‘When we were sixteen years old, I broke Johnny’s nose with the back of my hand.’
In Conversation
Daisy Johnson & Alan Trotter
Daisy Johnson and Alan Trotter discuss their latest novels, how they approach research, and the ways in which myths, horror movies and detective fiction influence their writing.
The Main Thing Is to Keep the Front Garden Immaculate
Simone Buchholz
An extract from Beton Rouge by Simone Buchholz, translated from the German by Rachel Ward.
Vintage 1954
Antoine Laurain
An extract from Vintage 1954 by Antoine Laurain, translated from the French by Emily Boyce and Jane Aitken.
A Night in the Engadine
John Kaag
John Kaag, author of Hiking with Nietzsche, camps out in the mountains of the Engadine where Nietzsche wrote Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
10 Schools of Philosophy that should be better known (in the West)
Julian Baggini
The author of How The World Thinks: A Global History of Philosophy explains ten of the most overlooked philosophies from around the world.
Martin Goodman | Notes on Craft
Martin Goodman
Martin Goodman on why it took him twenty years to write his latest novel, J SS Bach.
At the Edge of Night
Friedo Lampe
An excerpt from Friedo Lampe’s At the Edge of Night, translated from the German by Simon Beattie.
The Nine Circles
Margo Rejmer
‘The body wants to escape suffering at all costs. The body wants to live.’
Two Poems
Julia Copus
‘The me that was then / follows, watching from the dark / theatre of my skull.’
The Silk Road
Kathryn Davis
‘The choice of starting point wasn’t important; the important thing was to cycle through the same sequence of edges.’
Introduction
Devorah Baum & Josh Appignanesi
‘Troubling though they may be, feelings also tell us something about power and its limitations.’
