‘They were fascinated / by what they seemed to have contained.’
It was — what? — the triumph of hope
over experience. But what triumph
(and what hope)? The continued display
of a kind of unreasonable fortitude,
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Ariel Saramandi on her experience teaching in a lycée in Mauritius.
Fiction by Sidik Fofana, set in the South.
Kevin Maxwell on the police in the UK.
Morgan Parker and Rachel Long in conversation.
Poetry by Danez Smith, author of Don't Call Us Dead.
‘Living on money from the government, excused our duties and our liabilities, reducing our wants to eating and sleeping and what in the eighteenth century may have passed for exercise, the alderman’s stroll.’
‘For all its flimsiness, the cage takes itself terribly seriously, restricting access, glorying in the name of Fatherland.’
Peter Stamm on the oldest barber in Switzerland, and Michael Hofmann on translating Peter Stamm.
‘the snow reflecting off / your torch was the / colour of your thoughts’
‘We do it all day every day until we can’t see. / We do it with a belt between our teeth.’
‘She squinted, sighed a conflicted sigh and then unleashed another profanity, only this time against the rain.’
