Preserves for Life
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The Infinite Room
Claudia Durastanti
‘My life as a writer depends on irony and metaphor, and my parents are horrified and alienated by both.’
Translated from the Italian by Elizabeth Harris.
In Conversation
Will Alexander & James Goodwin
‘I may have mentioned this at a prior time but there are around 250,000 words in the English language, yet within the utilitarian scale they seem consumed according to advertising and profit.’
Birnam Wood
Eleanor Catton
Publishing March 2023 FROM THE WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE Birnam Wood is on the...
Notes on Craft
Alex Hyde
‘The scrubbing of floors or rugs. People down on their knees, “tamping” the stain.’ Alex Hyde on the everyday gestures that make a life.
Best Book of 1930: The Man Without Qualities
Elaine L. Wang
Elaine L. Wang on the best book of 1930: The Man Without Qualities.
Best Book of 2012: The Round House
Larissa Pham
‘Nine years after publication, Erdrich’s text still feels timely, even urgent.’
Larissa Pham’s best book of 2012.
Best Book of 2019: A Month in Siena
Emmanuel Iduma
‘In art he finds the language with which to exchange mourning for some measure of equanimity.’
Emmanuel Iduma’s best book of 2019.
Best Book of 1982: A Boy’s Own Story
O Thiam Chin
‘It didn’t occur to me that reading and being a reader was two very distinct things, one an act and a skill, and the other a role and a persona’
O Thiam Chin’s best book of 1982.
Double Date
Sasha Fletcher
‘Off in the distance, the landlords laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed!’
An excerpt from the new novel by Sasha Fletcher.
Signal
Zakia Uddin
‘I had begun to google the therapist reflexively whenever I was bored.’
A short story by Zakia Uddin.
In Conversation
Terrance Hayes & Nick Makoha
‘You wake up every day saying has the poem agreed to cooperate today or not?’ Terrance Hayes and Nick Makoha in conversation.
Pose
Ana Kinsella
‘The first time I was painted by Hannah Meehan, she spent some time arranging me into a pose that would work for her.’
A short story by Ana Kinsella.
Shining the Boot
Sarah Bernstein
‘I did my work and looked perfectly happy, tidy and unobjectionable, shining, shining the boot.’
New fiction from Sarah Bernstein.
The Schoolmaster’s Enemy
Missouri Williams
A new short story by Missouri Williams, author of The Doloriad.
Two Poems
Lee Young-ju
‘All I do is write in my sickbed diary. It’s been a while since I’ve done anything else.’ Two poems by Lee Young-ju translated by Jae Kim.
Three Poems
Eric Amling
‘They have friends everywhere / They have the iffy look of people that are free.’ Three poems by Eric Amling
Introduction: On Staying at Home
William Atkins
‘If the following pieces can be said to have an overriding characteristic, it is that they take seriously the experience of being a stranger.’
Guest editor William Atkins introduces the issue.
On Mistaking Whales
Bathsheba Demuth
‘The people who lived here lived in the heads of whales.’
A historian from New England goes to the Bering Strait.
The Steepest Places: In the Cordillera Central
Ben Mauk
‘In the mountains, however, Duterte seemed to have met his match.’
Ben Mauk meets the mountains of Luzon.
The Dam
Taran N. Khan
‘Invisible borders are not the same as open borders.’
Taran N. Khan on Hamburg’s Steindamm.
Travelling Secretary
Emmanuel Iduma
‘My life unfolded within the net effect of my father’s choices.’
Memoir by Emmanuel Iduma.
Graffiti Mobili
Jennifer Croft
‘The picture of a postcard is a geograft, a scion of a place thrust into the life of a resident of somewhere else.’
Jennifer Croft on graffiti and the history of the postcard.
The Ninth Spring: One Day at the Kolibi
Kapka Kassabova
Kapka Kassabova visits the Osmanovi family in the southern Balkans.
Tala Zone
Pascale Petit
‘Even when I travel as far as India, you are with me and I am re-entering our cellar.’
Memoir by the poet Pascale Petit.
A Wider Patch of Sky
Javier Zamora & Francisco Cantú
‘We’re so much more than those things. Citizen or undocumented. Border Patrol or immigrant.’
Letters between Javier Zamora and Francisco Cantú.
Boarding Pass
Carlos Manuel Álvarez
‘But the crime did exist; it was Cuba itself.’
Translated from the Spanish by Frank Wynne.
From an Untouched Landscape
James Tylor & Dominic Guerrera
‘It’s hard to find a spot where the colony hasn’t reached; the landscape is consistently interrupted.’
Dominic Guerrera introduces artwork by James Tylor.
