Ten Thousand Feet
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For the Love of Losing
Marina Benjamin
‘Winning, it turns out, was the cracking whip that meant gamblers had to stay where they were until they lost their money all over again.’
Marina Benjamin on losing.
Hôtel Casanova
Annie Ernaux
‘I never asked myself if I loved P. But nothing could have kept me from going to make love with him at the Hôtel Casanova.’
Memoir by Annie Ernaux, translated by Alison L. Strayer.
Misfortune
André Alexis
‘How many children had accidentally – or purposely, for that matter – shot a parent? Too many to count, no doubt.’
Fiction by André Alexis.
This Is as Far as We Come
Carlos Fonseca
‘Those men and women don’t want rubber. They are after something more ethereal but fearsome: the conversion of souls.’
Fiction by Carlos Fonseca, translated by Megan McDowell.
What It Promised
Cian Oba-Smith & Gary Younge
‘As the economy declined African Americans became a larger part of a shrinking and impoverished city.’
Gary Younge introduces the photography of Cian Oba-Smith.
Many Words for Heat, Many Words for Hate
Amitava Kumar
‘In Delhi the heat is chemical, something unworldly, a dry bandage or heating pad wrapped around the body.’
Memoir by Amitava Kumar.
Biography of X
Catherine Lacey
‘Grief has a warring logic; it always wants something impossible, something worse and something better.’
An extract from Biography of X by Catherine Lacey.
Ecstatic Joy and Its Variants
Peter Gizzi
‘surely this is about water jetting from a spring, / a languid rafting with no particular destination’
Poetry by Peter Gizzi.
The Public and Private Performance of the Deaf Body
Raymond Antrobus
‘There was always cynicism about Ray being a deaf novelty act.’
Raymond Antrobus on performance, Deafness and Johnnie Ray.
Long, Too Long America
Aaron Schuman & Sigrid Rausing
‘The conundrum of America: on the one hand, violence and repression; on the other, freedom and social justice.’
Sigrid Rausing introduces photography by Aaron Schuman.
The Schedule of Loss
Emily LaBarge
‘The Schedule of Loss is what can be heard, what can be tolerated, what can be borne by both teller and told.’
Memoir by Emily LaBarge.
To That Silence, I Told Everything
Xiao Yue Shan
‘To survive, difference was something that had to be mastered.’
Xiao Yue Shan on migration, absence and discovering a library at the end of the world.
The Antigua Journals (What Is a Homeland)
Chanelle Benz
‘I am used to not belonging; it is, you could say, my brand.’
Chanelle Benz on reuniting with her father in Antigua.
The Golden Record
Caspar Henderson
‘The two copies of the Golden Record were shot into space nearly fifty years ago.’
Caspar Henderson on music sent into space by NASA.
Ordinary People
Richard Eyre
‘Is it courage? Is it stoicism? Is it wilful lack of imagination?’
Richard Eyre on family histories and what it means to be ordinary.
A Light Bird
Maylis de Kerangal
‘Her voice survived her, in recorded form, indestructible, in the form of a light bird.’
Fiction by Maylis de Kerangal, translated by Jessica Moore.
City by the Sea
Kalpesh Lathigra & Max Ferguson
‘The homogeneity of cities is a form of madness, but it’s also comfortable because it’s a recognisable madness.’
Kalpesh Lathigra on Mumbai, artistic perspective and moving away from neutrality.
The Last Place We Were Happy
TaraShea Nesbit
‘Our daughter had been born one month early, unbreathing. My husband and I drove to the last place we were happy.’
Memoir by TaraShea Nesbit.
Through the Smoke, Through the Veil, Through the Wind
Roger Reeves
‘In the middle of disaster, we made the unimaginable – joy.’
Roger Reeves on loss, memory and the legacy of slavery.
In Conversation
Constance Debré & Chris Kraus
‘It was a bit like Saint Augustine and his conversion.’
Constance Debré and Chris Kraus on queer identity, casual sex and the politics of refusal.
Owlish
Dorothy Tse
‘Here one minute, gone the next.’
Notes on Craft
Aidan Cottrell-Boyce
‘The whole episode is a miracle and much of the miracle is in the muscles of Carmela’s face.’
Aidan Cottrell-Boyce on craft, nuance and The Sopranos.
Two Poems
Tim Liardet
‘Head up, / head down, it strolled ever so slowly out of the frame / with the suggestion of a limp. Extinct as an umbrella.’
Poetry by Tim Liardet.
I Won’t Let You Go
Hiromi Kawakami
‘I have no idea why I felt so drawn to the mermaid, but the pull was irresistible.’
Fiction by Hiromi Kawakami, translated by Allison Markin Powell.
Dazzling
Chịkọdịlị Emelụmadụ
‘I saw it all. Nobody here gives children ear, so I saw everything just by being quiet and doing like I dinor see.’
An extract from Dazzling by Chịkọdịlị Emelụmadụ.
What You Need From the Night
Laurent Petitmangin
‘Fus was twenty-five, he wasn’t a kid. What was he doing hanging out with fascists?’
An excerpt from What You Need From the Night. Translated from the French by Shaun Whiteside.
The Flesh Strip
Adrian Van Young
‘No person or doll had anatomy like that. It was, she reasoned, some mistake, a dud in the assembly line, but something about it felt special, auspicious.’
A story by Adrian Van Young.
Hungry Ghosts
Kevin Jared Hosein
‘This was no longer a fight, Krishna realised. This was a point of no return.’
An excerpt from Hungry Ghosts by Kevin Jared Hosein.
In Conversation
Pico Iyer & Caryl Phillips
‘The immigrant’s dream – that he or she can make a better life for the children – becomes a kind of tragedy when it comes true.’
Pico Iyer and Caryl Phillips discuss migration, V. S. Naipaul and the meaning of home.
Tantrum
Lucie Elven
‘When I looked back, I felt a jolt – some forgotten, tearful part of me becoming magnified. Why would you stay with a person wielding a broom or an axe?’
New fiction from Lucie Elven.
Moving Nowhere Here
Kimberly Campanello
‘I am afraid to say we are all / progressing or regressing / down a more or less screwy road / found on a very old map / until / we are going Nowhere.’
A poem by Kimberly Campanello.
Trembling
Maru Ayase
‘I always felt this way whenever a fresh stone grew inside me.’ A story by Maru Ayase, translated from the Japanese by Haydn Trowell.
Brutes
Dizz Tate
‘It was a Saturday and we had nothing to do like every other day of our lives.’
An extract from Brutes by Dizz Tate.
