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Thank You for Having Me

Lorrie Moore

‘Every day there was something new to mourn and something old to celebrate.’

Bad Seeds

Masatsugu Ono

‘Evil, she told herself. That was the name of the flower.’

Essex

Norman Lewis

‘Essex is the ugliest county. I only went there to be able to work in peace and quiet and get away from the settlers from London south of the river.’

Now A Major Motion Picture

Todd McEwen

‘None of these high-falutin pansy-ass would-be 'technologies' are going to save literature.’

Item Girls

Kuzhali Manickavel

‘I have heard the item girls singing each to each. / I do not think they will sing to me.’

Lagos Must Prosper

Alexis Okeowo

21 million people, $91 billion GDP, an ambitious governor whose term is up: Alexis Okeowo on the megacity of Lagos

Chromium

Primo Levi

‘Life is full of customs whose roots can no longer be traced ... but in any event, why were pig's feet obligatory with lentils, and cheese on macaroni?’

Maud Newton | Portrait of My Father

Maud Newton

‘Exactly how long the prostitute, unbeknownst to my father, stayed at our house and slept in my bed is hard to gauge.’

A Clean Marriage

Sayaka Murata

‘Frequency of sex since marriage: zero.’ Sayaka Murata on a sexless marriage and the ‘Clean Breeder’ technique for pleasureless reproduction.

Small Differences

Catherine Lacey

‘Everyone should just sit very still until they reach the calmer waters of later-young-adulthood, that promised land of lowered expectations.’

Two Years in the Dark

Andrew O’Hagan

‘There's no right or wrong about this, there's only style.’

Five Houses

Melanie McFadyean

‘I live here, we say, this is my house, my home. We settle, dwell, adorn. A house feels permanent. But this illusion of security can end in a minute.’

Come, Japanese!

Julie Otsuka

‘On the boat we each had to make choices.’

The Writing of ‘Or Shall We Die?’

Ian McEwan

‘There was too the challenge, as I saw it, of writing a singable English, simple and clear, that could express public themes without pomposity and private feelings without bathos.’