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Zagreb

Dubravka Ugrešić

‘‘We’ll print your book if you bring us 140 kilos of paper,’ says my friend, a publisher. ‘Where can I find 140 kilos of paper?’ ‘I don’t know. That’s your problem, you’re the writer.’’

A question of identity

Dubravka Ugrešić

‘One of the first things a child learns is the sentiment: My country is… And so begins the homeland briefing that lasts from the cradle to the grave.’

The Art of Moving On

David Ulin

‘This felt like the moment New York disappeared for me.’

Poor Lucky Kolyvanova

Ludmila Ulitskaya

‘The red girls’ school stood opposite a grey boys’ school, built five years after it as if to proclaim the rational symmetry of the world.’

Life and Breasts

Ludmila Ulitskaya

‘Death is here, by our side, and we can make no witty Nabokovian jokes about it.’

Ludmila Ulitskaya | On Europe

Ludmila Ulitskaya

‘It seems clear to me that during the past ten years, Russia has reached the apex of its estrangement from Europe.’ Translated from the Russian by Polly Gannon.

Two Poems

Jack Underwood

‘We are nearing the conclusion of this anatomy. / We are strung between the point of ending, and / the point of having started.’

The Island

Jack Underwood

‘She draws from her mind the image of a giant steel girder, pictures it smashing through the wall of the bar, obliterating everything, legs and arms reaching and waving.’

Sorry to Disturb You

Jack Underwood

The only thing scarier than ghosts are the ghosts working at a call center.

Open Water

Deb Olin Unferth

She had already imagined it all, so much so that when she finally did see him, she felt unable to speak.

To the Ocean

Deb Olin Unferth

‘At the desk they said they encouraged guests not to walk, but she was determined’

Best Book of 2010: Mr Chartwell, by Rebecca Hunt

Emma Jane Unsworth

‘Hunt writes with brio, the visceral often blooming into the mystical.’

Naples is Closed

Barry Unsworth

‘Naples had always been high on the list of places I wanted to visit‘.