Tongues of Fire
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Nancy’s Victory
Diane Williams
‘She saw a small swatch of pink and supposed a sunset was out there and thought, What can that knockout pink do for me?’
New fiction by Diane Williams.
Three Poems
John Freeman
‘One morning time trips a reel / and I’m confronted with / the object I will become / carpentered for eternity.’
An extract from John Freeman’sWind, Trees.
They Tell You They Love You
Niamh Donnelly
‘Sometimes, in the shower, he finds new and surprising bruises, whose origin he can’t place.’
A story by Niamh Donnelly.
On Silk
Sally Wen Mao
‘At the silk museum, / the silkworms crumpled themselves in baskets, / lazy and dazed in the spoils of mulberry.’
A poem by Sally Wen Mao.
In Conversation
Kamila Shamsie & Sunjeev Sahota
A conversation between Kamila Shamsie and Sunjeev Sahota.
Three Poems
Zaffar Kunial
‘In the blowy wet distance a yew, shivering.’
An excerpt from England’s Green by Zaffar Kunial.
The Book of Goose
Yiyun Li
‘Just follow me, she had said, you do nothing but what I tell you to.’
An extract from Yiyun Li’s new novel.
Sinkhole
Rosanna McLaughlin
‘She’d always been a heavy sweater, ever since puberty first coated her skin with downy fur, transforming the climate of her body into something dank and grotty.’
An excerpt from Rosanna McLaughlin’s Sinkhole.
Haunted Houses
Laura Maw
‘Ghost stories, then, are not always characterised by fear. Sometimes, they are stories of belief, comfort, faith.’
Laura Maw on the photography of Corinne May Botz.
Kick the Latch
Kathryn Scanlan
‘You live at the track, your life is full.’
An excerpt from Kathryn Scanlan’s new work of fiction, Kick the Latch.
The Unfolding
A.M. Homes
‘As the brightness increases, the sky flushes with pink and red hues somewhere between birth and Armageddon.’
An excerpt from A.M. Homes’ new novel.
Life Is Everywhere
Lucy Ives
‘Erin’s mother, whom Erin also loved, was a covetous person, treacherous and clever.’
An excerpt from Lucy Ives’ new novel.
In The Event
Eva Warrick
‘The sky hung bizarrely brownish and heavy below a pink teacup sun, like a portent of the outer space invasion.’
A story by Eva Warrick.
Comfy
Edward Herring
‘Who needs a bed? he said one night. He was drinking beer out of an old dirty pickle jar.’
New fiction by Edward Herring.
The Making of Acting Class
Nick Drnaso
Nick Drnaso on the making of his new graphic novel Acting Class, in this exclusive mini-documentary.
In Conversation
Momtaza Mehri & Warsan Shire
Momtaza Mehri and Warsan Shire talk about nineties London, parentification and diasporic inheritances.
Two Poems
James Conor Patterson
‘i think again, love, that t believe in this / would be t chapen the accident of our own gift’
Two poems from James Conor Patterson’s collection, bandit country.
The Second He
Nathaniel Rosenthalis
‘I like to play the footage back: / I was withstanding (I was grieving / the disappearing he was doing).’
A poem by Nathaniel Rosenthalis.
Barbershop
Giada Scodellaro
‘Next door to the diner was the barbershop with its wood paneling and its poster of men.’
An excerpt from Giada Scodellaro’s debut short story collection.
The Patchwork Dolls
Ysabelle Cheung
‘The last few years, everybody wanted the same eyes: domed like lemons, with precise, symmetrical lashes.’
A story by Ysabelle Cheung.
How To Milk
Emily Ogden
‘The milking technology for cows is in many ways superior to the one for humans.’
An essay from Emily Ogden’s On Not Knowing.
An Excerpt from Distance Sickness
Jenny Xie
‘To relive is the snarl of description, worked over repeatedly in the mind’
A poem by Jenny Xie.
Black and Female
Tsitsi Dangarembga
‘By the time I was in my teens, I had taken up an existence framed by a double negative: not male, not white.’
An excerpt from Tsitsi Dangarembga’s essay collection, Black and Female.
Words in the Head and Words in the Sentence
Herta Müller
‘During an interrogation speech glows hot in the mouth, and what is spoken freezes.’
Herta Müller on language. Translated from the German by Philip Boehm.
Introduction
Sigrid Rausing
‘Our theme of conflict is internal as well as external.’
The editor introduces the issue.
Letters from Ukraine
Lindsey Hilsum
‘As every soldier and every journalist who has ever covered a war knows – sleeping and eating are the most important things.’
Lindsey Hilsum writes home from Ukraine.
I Am the Word for God and Boy
Aidan Cottrell-Boyce
‘We are sitting in a cafe, on planet Earth, on the night before our wedding day.’
Fiction by Aidan Cottrell-Boyce.
The Recipe
Rebecca May Johnson
‘The recipe is a text that can produce spattering because it was spattering before it was language.’
Rebecca May Johnson on recipes, repetition and intimacy.
Skromnost
Janet Malcolm
‘The Czech word skromnost means “modesty”, but it also carries a mild sense of forelock-tugging humbleness, of knowing one’s place.’
An excerpt from Janet Malcolm’s final book.
