We waited quietly for the Queen who wasn’t there, whose car –
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We waited quietly for the Queen who wasn’t there, whose car –
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‘I think there should be a National Service of Hospitality. The best way to see the true face of humanity is to serve it a plate of chips.’
Camilla Grudova on bad-mannered customers.
‘Anyone who has ever worked night shifts will understand the vertiginous feeling that comes with staring down the day from the wrong end.’
A.K. Blakemore on working nights.
‘I was constantly reading job ads, trying to find my holy grail – a job I could stand to do, and someone foolish enough to hire me.’
Sandra Newman on learning how to play professional blackjack.
‘I loved being a receptionist. What I loved about it was playing the part of being a receptionist.’
Emily Berry on being a temporary office worker.
‘Every part of you would swell, including your eyeballs, and no matter how much water you drank, you were always dehydrated.’
Junot Díaz on working for a steel mill.
Gillian Allnutt is the author of numerous volume of poetry, including How the Bicycle Shone: New and Selected Poems, Sojourner and Lintel.
More about the author →
‘That shiny / black tooth exuding the indisputable / urgency of the bite’
Four poems by Hu Xudong, translated by Margaret Ross.
‘Many of these residents are unable to afford life in Shanghai and refer to themselves as “the living dead”.’
Leslie Shang Zhefeng photographs vacant apartments and the people who have made them their homes.
‘It would be wrong to say she hasn’t experienced life. Instead, it would be more apt to describe her as someone whom time has slipped by without leaving the slightest trace.’
Fiction by Wang Anyi, translated by Michael Berry.
‘In the years before his stroke, just how many times had her father told a woman he loved her after dating for two or three weeks?’
Fiction by Elvira Navarro, translated by Christina MacSweeney.
‘They started out as fraternities, the cults. Poorer students wanted strong networks, like the ones boarding school pupils had already.’
Fiction by Toye Oladinni.
‘What I would like to experience most of all would be to find myself freed, even if only for a moment, from the weight of my body.’ Primo Levi on floating.
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