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Reports from the Front: Winter 2023
Peter Englund
‘I repeat: the landscape of war is an acoustic landscape.’
Peter Englund on the war in Ukraine, translated from the Swedish by Sigrid Rausing.
Family Meal
Bryan Washington
‘It’s a paper bag filled with pastries. Chicken turnovers.’
An extract from Family Meal by Bryan Washington.
Cairo Song
Wiam El-Tamami
‘I see this everywhere. The creativity, resourcefulness and incredible talent for improvisation in Egypt.’
Wiam El-Tamami on returning to Cairo.
Plainsong
Suzie Howell & A. K. Blakemore
‘Postures of graceful receptivity, or surrender. How do we tell the difference?’
A.K. Blakemore introduces Suzie Howell’s photographs.
The Index of Porosity
Adam Mars-Jones
‘Is there in fact a jostling for dominance between the art forms, some barely suppressed competitiveness?’
Adam Mars-Jones on music and ceremony.
One Day It Will all Make Sense
Tabitha Lasley
‘It occurs to me then that he has not invited me for dinner, but my alter ego from the page.’
Tabitha Lasley on writing and dating.
A Report on Music in Ukraine
Ed Vulliamy
‘Nights at the opera in Ukraine – where everything, including every kind of music, has changed.’
Ed Vulliamy on music in Ukraine.
Journal Excerpts 1997–1999
Lydia Davis
‘gormandizing, gluttonous, lickerish, guttling’
Excerpts from Lydia Davis’s diary.
Once a Dancer
Diana Evans
‘What happens to a dancer when they stop dancing?’
Diana Evans on dancing and writing.
We’re Not Really Strangers
Sama Beydoun
‘The people I’ve photographed made Beirut liveable.’
Sama Beydoun photographs the nightlife of Beirut.
Soundscapes of Phnom Penh
Anjan Sundaram
‘From my bronze-painted balcony, I chronicled the sounds of Phnom Penh’s private industry.’
Anjan Sundaram on the sound of corruption in Cambodia.
The Tide
Adèle Rosenfeld
‘In my ears were muted thumps, the drumbeat of my pulse.’
Fiction by Adèle Rosenfeld, translated by Jeffrey Zuckerman.
The Soundscape of War
Ada Wordsworth
‘Ordinary sounds change their meaning in the context of war when the reverberations of sound can mean death.’
Ada Wordsworth on silence, noise and the war in Ukraine.
Great North Wood
James Berrington
‘One of the things that keeps drawing me back is the wide variety of birds.’
James Berrington photographs the fragments of a London woodland.
Endurance
Maartje Scheltens
‘Four Organs allows us to step out of time and briefly inhabit infinity.’
Maartje Scheltens on Steve Reich, repetition and discomfort.
Things That Dream
Brian Dillon
‘Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” might well be the greatest record to feature the Linn drum sound.’
Brian Dillon on the legacy of drum machines.
Strange Beach
Oluwaseun Olayiwola
‘Worth. It circles around you – / the increasing gap between the surface’
A poem by Oluwaseun Olayiwola.
More Night
Oluwaseun Olayiwola
‘Immeasurable beauty / is immeasurable precisely / until it’s gone –’
A poem by Oluwaseun Olayiwola.
A Life Where Nothing Happens
Mazen Maarouf
‘His fear was that we would die in front of him and so he thought of us all the time, which is not what he wanted.’
Fiction by Mazen Maarouf.
TonyInterruptor
Nicola Barker
‘Insofar as value for money is relevant to art, that audience – an attentive audience, a great audience – were determined to get it.’
Fiction by Nicola Barker.
Mute Tree
Y-Dang Troeung
‘When and where does the crisis of war begin and end?’
Y-Dang Troeung on the longevity of war.
In Conversation
Vanessa Onwuemezi & Colin Herd
‘Words only point to experience, they can’t replace it.’
Vanessa Onwuemezi and Colin Herd discuss UFOs, relation, and the search for an inner sense of home.
Stone Village
Can Xue
‘I knew the stones inside me were the same ones that were outside: they were colluding with each other.’
A story by Can Xue, translated from the Chinese by Karen Gernant and Chen Zeping.
Wound
Oksana Vasyakina
‘Into the carrot-coloured bag, alongside my clothes, I put the box with Mama’s urn.’
An excerpt from Oksana Vasyakina’s Wound, translated from the Russian by Elina Alter.
Two Poems
Mary Jean Chan
‘Can I be myself now? I ask / my parents in a dream.’
Two poems from Mary Jean Chan’s collection Bright Fear.
Meat Love
Amber Husain
‘They say it takes a village to raise a child and the same can be true of killing.’
Amber Husain on meat.
A Simple Blueprint
Marta Orriols
‘We master cartography, yet despite everything, we go back and forth often in our lives, directionless.’
Fiction by Marta Orriols, translated by Samantha Mateo.
There Was a Farmer Had a Dog
Irene Solà
‘A twenty-five-kilo dog is too small to survive in the countryside.’
An extract from Irene Solà’s forthcoming novel, translated by Mara Faye Lethem.
The Tupperware Party
Montserrat Roig
‘We’re going to go crazy today, Merche exclaimed and then let out an electric shriek.’
Fiction by Montserrat Roig, translated by Julia Sanches.
In Conversation
Julia Sanches & Mara Faye Lethem
‘There are times when I think I came to literary translation just so I could keep my many homes close to hand.’
Julia Sanches and Mara Faye Lethem on translating Catalan into English.
The Pink Plastic Glove
Dolors Miquel
‘A pink plastic glove arrives, I say hello, pink plastic glove, you’ve arrived.’
Poetry by Dolors Miquel, translated by Peter Bush.
Prophecy
Raül Garrigasait
‘They both had their heads almost inside the carcass, which gave off a whiff of life and of death.’
Fiction by Raül Garrigasait, translated by Mara Faye Lethem.
My Work
Olga Ravn
‘When they placed the child on Anna’s breast after the birth, she felt nothing.’
Fiction by Olga Ravn, translated by Sophia Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell.
