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Amit Chaudhuri | First Sentence
Amit Chaudhuri
‘A scene in which nothing is ostensibly happening will absorb me; so will a paragraph that contains no vital piece of information.’
The Naming of Moths
Tracy Fells
‘Sophia no longer worries about how life smells, if she breathes in too deeply all she tastes is ash.’ The 2017 Commonwealth Short Story Prize winner from Canada and Europe.
Araben
Pooneh Rohi
‘Like all roads, this one too comes to an end.’ A Swedish novel that looks at the realities of the immigrant experience.
Emma Cline | Five Things Right Now
Emma Cline
The author of The Girls and one of our 2017 Best of Young American Novelist shares five things she’s reading, watching and thinking about right now.
The Tamarind is Always Sour
Keane Shum
‘By law, the more than one million Rohingya in Myanmar are almost all excluded from Myanmar citizenship, making them the largest stateless group in the world.’
Caravan of Freedom
Nicola Lo Calzo
When Fidel Castro died, his funeral procession was called a ‘Caravan of Freedom’, and extended 900km, from Santiago to Havana.
A Pinch of Salt
Andrea Brady
‘When we’re close to weaning / ourselves history gives us its reasons / to return’
Who Is Like God
Akwaeke Emezi
‘I grew up thinking He was folded into her body, very gently, like when she folded sifted icing sugar into beaten egg white, those kinds of loving corners.’
Blue Self-Portrait
Noémi Lefebvre
‘One piece of luck: I didn’t explain to the pianist how to play the piano.’ Translated from the French by Sophie Lewis.
700 Miles
Seba Kurtis & Barry W. Hughes
A photoessay documenting life along the 700-mile concrete and steel border between Mexico and the United States.
Three Poems
Kim Kyung Ju
‘Underneath the leaves that stack my upper lip / the reindeer do not share their love.’ Translated from the Korean by Jake Levine.
On Jesus’ Son
Eli Goldstone
‘Jesus’ Son is a song, a glorious clear hymn, full of the notes of bad decisions, of rotten fucking luck, of causing real and lasting damage to yourself and to the people around you.’
Drawing Lessons
Anushka Jasraj
‘All colours are hurt spectacles, I think, and say aloud without intention.’ The 2017 Commonwealth Short Story Prize winner for Asia.
Daniel Magariel | Five Things Right Now
Daniel Magariel
Daniel Magariel shares five things he’s reading, watching and thinking about right now.
Remembering Denis Johnson
J. Ryan Stradal
When people ask me what Denis was like, I always think about how he listened far more intently than just about any writer I’d ever met.
Russia on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
Liza Alexandrova-Zorina
‘The Russian people suffer from a victim complex: they believe that nothing depends on them, and by them nothing can be changed.’
The Death of Margaret Roe
Nat Newman
The 2017 Commonwealth Short Story Prize winner from the Pacific. ‘Every person has their own secrets, but Margaret Roe had Havilah Brown’s.’
Train Dreams
Denis Johnson
In the summer of 1917 Robert Grainier took part in an attempt on the life of a Chinese laborer caught, or anyway accused of, stealing from the company stores of the Spokane International Railway in the Idaho Panhandle.
Happy Hour
Denis Johnson
The day was ending in a fiery and glorious way. The ships on the Sound looked like paper silhouettes being sucked up into the sun.
Paul Auster In Conversation
Paul Auster & Luke Neima
Paul Auster in conversation about existential doubt, where he finds his inspiration, and the writing of his longest novel to date, 4 3 2 1.
I Am Lying
Miranda Doyle
‘Findings show that the bigger the brain, the more frequent the deceit.’ Miranda Doyle on why we lie.
Two Poems
Natalie Shapero
‘If I had no money for every time / I saw a stock photo of an empty / pocket being pulled inside-out, I’d / have no money.’
Any Idiot Can Write a Book
Nell Stevens
A production company is looking for contestants to participate in a new TV show, modelled on The Apprentice. They are seeking unpublished writers who have completed a novel.
Julianne Pachico and Colin Barrett in Conversation
Julianne Pachico & Colin Barrett
Julianne Pachico and Colin Barrett debate line writing vs free writing, inherited literatures and how to give a reading.
All That Was Familiar
Abubakar Adam Ibrahim
The story of two women fleeing Boko Haram in north-east Nigeria.
Consolata
Nuala O’Connor
‘Daddy always said our apples were blessed because the order lived beside us. He liked to gift crates of Egremont Russets, the sweetest of all his fruit, to the sisters.’
Eli Goldstone | Five Things Right Now
Eli Goldstone
‘The closest I come to meditating is sitting in front of a tumble dryer with a dead magazine.’
Strange Heart Beating
Eli Goldstone
‘Grief is the aggressive displacement of the self from a known universe to another.’
Between Them
Richard Ford
‘It was my child’s outlook to think most things were right. And yet if life’s eternal drama is of events seeking a more perfect state, their life and mine was not that.’
